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Lincoln's Gettysburg 
World-Message 



By 
HENRY EYSTER JACOBS 



PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
THE UNITED LUTHERAN PUBLICATION HOUSE 






Copyright, 191 9, by 
The United Lutheran Publication Housb 



DEC 22 1919 




©CI.A561774 



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Gettysburg will live in history because of 
its association with Lincoln even more than 
as the scene of the decisive battle of the 
Civil War. As time passes, the details of 
battles interest chiefly students of military 
science. Even veterans grow weary of re- 
calling the horrors of the battlefield, and 
prefer to glory in the end achieved, rather 
than in the painful experiences through 
which they have passed. So vast, too, has 
been the scale upon wtaiA battles have been 
fought in the Great War that has recently 
ended, that those of preceding wars have 
been dwarfed into relative insignificance. 
But the memory of Gettysburg will survive 
because of the interpretation given the 
battle by one who was not only the Com- 
mander-in-chief of the armies of the Union 
which there triumphed, but also the great 



4 PREFACE 

prophet of the cause of civil and reHgious 
Hberty. The battle itself was only the pre- 
lude to the still mightier force that was 
transmitted in his telling words, which not 
only sounded the rallying cry for the final 
struggle of the w^ar, on which the fate of 
our nation then hung, but which uninten- 
tionally gave the signal for the assertion 
throughout the world of great principles 
that had hitherto been suppressed. 

Nor will the careful student ever recall 
Lincoln without recognizing the Gettysburg 
incident as condensing within itself all that 
he elsewhere spoke and wrote and accom- 
plished. The meaning of what had trans- 
pired on the first three days of July, 1863, 
with the thousands of lives that had been 
sacrificed, and the tens of thousands that 
were enduring untold physical suffering, 
and the countless homes throughout the land 
that w^ere darkened because they mourned 
loved ones, so filled his heart that he com- 
pressed the convictions of a lifetime and 



PREFACE 5 

the anguish of the responsibihties he was 
then bearing, into a two minutes' address 
that has become the most highly cherished 
classic that America has produced. The 
aim of what is presented in the following 
pages is to treat of the historical setting of 
the address, together with a study of the 
principles which underlie it. 



Contents; 

Preface 3 

I. The Place and the People. . . 9 

II. The Prelude to the Battle. . 22 

III. The Battle 36 

IV. Gettysburg's Greatest Day: 

November 19, 1863 57 

The National Cemetery 
Lincoln at Gettysburg 
Edward Everett 
An Eloquent Peroration 
The Great Address 
V. Ruling Principles of Lin- 
coln's Statesmanship 84 

National Unity 
States Rights 
Individual Liberty 
The Religious Element 
VI. Summary 127 






I 

The Place and the People 

Gettysburg, before the great battle, was 
a compactly built town of somewhat over 
two thousand inhabitants. Most of the 
borough lay in a valley between hills that 
have since been rendered famous. Two 
turnpikes, intersecting at the public square 
("the Diamond"), formed the axis around 
which the town had grown. If there had 
been but these two roads it is improbable 
that Gettysburg would ever have been 
known in history. But at the edges of the 
town other roads radiated to intermediate 
points of the compass, like spokes of a 
wheel. In the days of stage coaches and 

9 



10 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

Conestoga wagons, before railroads were 
built, it was a center of travel and traffic. 
Within eight miles of Mason and Dixon's 
Line, its connections with the South were 
as close as those with the North ; and it had 
some of the characteristics of a southern 
town. Baltimore was only fifty-two miles 
distant on the southeast; Washington a 
little over sixty miles to the south; while 
Philadelphia was one hundred and four- 
teen to the east, and Harrisburg thirty-six 
to the northeast. 

The surrounding country was not fertile. 
The red shale rock lay close to the surface 
of the soil, with muddy roads for an extra- 
ordinarily long period in spring and autumn, 
and a temperature in summer belonging 
properly to a much lower latitude. 

The scenery about the town compensated 
for all other defects. From north to south- 
west the Blue Ridge Mountains describe the 
arc of a circle, at a distance of from ten to 
fifteen miles. Tliere was great variety in 



THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 11 

the shading, as when, on exceptionally clear 
days, the usual blue was changed for green, 
or, in the winter, sometimes for weeks, for 
white ; or when, in summer, foretokening 
an approaching storm, thunder-heads of 
every shape and hue, gathered about their 
summits in battle array; or, as at all sea- 
sons, the sun sank to rest in all his glory. 
Where the mountain line was broken, the 
wooded heights of Gulp's and Wolf Hills, 
and of the two Round Tops, offered another 
type of scenery, scarcely less attractive. 

Towards the west ran an unfinished rail- 
road almost ready for the ties, designed to 
connect Eastern Pennsylvania with the Bal- 
timore & Ohio, and known, because of its 
many circuits in its approach to the moun- 
tains, as "The Tape Worm." Thaddeus 
Stevens had the credit or blame of being its 
chief advocate. After the state had ex- 
pended large appropriations upon it, it was 
abandoned, and remained for some forty 
years a long stretch of waste land, until in 



12 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

another generation it was completed. 

The County of Adams, of which, when 
separated from York, Gettysburg became in 
1800 the county seat, was settled chiefly by 
Scotch-Irish immigrants, who came to this 
locality in large numbers about 1740, and 
for a long time were embroiled in conflicts 
with the German settlers on the east. As a 
peace measure, York County was divided, 
and the new county, composed chiefly of 
Federalists, was named after the Federal 
President, John Adams. Among the fami- 
lies of Scotch origin, many of whose names 
have been made prominent in the state and 
the nation, through offshoots of the same 
stock, were the Agnews, Allisons, Baileys, 
Binghams, Caldwells, Cassatts, Chamber- 
lains, Cobeans, Crawfords, Cunninghams, 
Dunwoodies, Duncans, Galloways, Gilli- 
lands, Hamiltons, Harpers, Horners, Linns, 
Lotts, Marshalls, McAllisters, McCleans, 
McClearies, McClellans, McConaughies, 
McCrearies, McCulloughs, McCurdies, Mc- 



THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 13 

Farlanes, Mcllhennies, McNairs, McPher- 
sons, McSherries, Neelys, Paxtons, Porters, 
Russells, Scotts, Stewarts, Thompsons, 
Warners, Wills, Wilsons and Witherows. 

A sturdy and vigorous people, they were 
intelligent, inflexible in purpose, fond of 
argument, in fair circumstances, clannish, 
aristocratic, and born agitators and poli- 
ticians. Their well-educated pastors did 
not shrink from leadership in matters of 
state, as well as in those of the Church. 
Following the example of President With- 
erspoon, of Princeton, the one clerical rep- 
resentative among the signers of the Dec- 
laration of Independence, Rev. John Black, 
of the Marsh Creek Settlement, one of 
Princeton's earliest graduates, prominently 
participated as delegate in the memorable 
Pennsylvania Convention of 1787, which in 
the face of fierce opposition adopted the 
Constitution of the United States and was 
most influential in determining its adoption 
by the other states. From their farms a 



14 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

constant stream of their children flowed to 
the town, and then from the town to the 
city or the opening West. 

The Germans, exceUing them as farmers, 
stuck more tenaciously to their farms, and 
gradually preponderated in the country dis- 
tricts. But the lines of sharp distinction 
faded as all became Americans and realized 
the value of their American citizenship. 
Nor could the two streams flow side by side 
without intermingling. Intermarriages were 
frequent, resulting in a mixed race, com- 
bining the qualities of both parents. 

A small Dutch colony, that soon blended 
with the Scotch-Irish, had settled in the 
neighborhood of Hunterstown, five miles 
east of Gettysburg. At York Springs, four- 
teen miles to the northeast, there was a 
flourishing Friends' settlement, well known 
for its anti-slavery sympathy, and having 
the general repute of being an important 
station in the ''Underground Raitroad," by 
which fugitive slaves escaped from Mary- 



THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 15 

land and were carried to places of security 
in the North or in Canada. 

The bar had been one of conspicuous 
ability. Here Thaddeus Stevens, the leader 
in the United States House of Representa- 
tives during the Civil War, and the radical 
anti-slavery agitator, rose to prominence. 
His pupil, James Cooper, became Attorney 
General of Pennsylvania and United States 
Senator. Among other law students in his 
Gettysburg office were Hon. Godlove S. 
Orth, afterwards Minister to Austria, and 
Governor Conrad Baker, of Indiana. Ed- 
ward McPherson, member of Congress, 
editor of the Philadelphia Press, and for 
fourteen years Clerk of the National House 
of Representatives, President of the Na- 
tional Republican Convention which nomi- 
nated Hayes for the presidency, an author 
and political statistician of high repute, was 
a native, and, throughout nearly all his life, 
a citizen of Gettysburg, active in every im- 
portant interest of the community. 



16 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD- MESSAGE 

The locality was an educational center 
long before the borough had been chartered. 
The school was older than the town. The 
spacious schoolhouse, falling into decay at 
the time of the battle, which stood at the 
foot of Cemetery Hill, at the intersection 
of the Emmitsburg and Taneytown roads, 
was the home of Rev. Alexander Dobbin 
in Colonial times, within which ministers 
were trained for the Associated Reformed 
Church, or prepared for college. In 1807 
Rev. David McConaughy, the Presbyterian 
pastor, afterwards President of Washing- 
ton College, opened a grammar school, 
which in time was supplanted by "The 
Adams County Academy," whose edifice 
was built in 1810. Seventeen years later 
this gave place to 'The Gettysburg Gym- 
nasium," which after five years was in- 
corporated as "Pennsylvania College." 
These details are given to indicate the liter- 
ary atmosphere of the place.. 

The Lutheran Theological Seminary, 



THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 17 

whose buildings on the ridge directly west 
of the town gave the name to Seminary 
Hill, was founded in 1826, and in 1863 was 
still under the presidency of the first pro- 
fessor, Rev. Dr. S. S. Schmucker, with 
Rev. Drs. Charles Philip Krauth and 
Charles F. Schaeffer as his associates. 
Hundreds of ministers had already pro- 
ceeded from its walls to all parts of the 
country. 

The Gettysburg Gymnasium had been 
begun in 1827, in order to afford the neces- 
sary preparatory training for the seminary, 
and when, in 1832, this had become Penn- 
sylvania College, the buildings of the new 
college arose to the north of the towji. 
Thither not only a large constituency sent 
their sons for training, but former students 
frequently gathered from both North and 
South, to revive the memory of college 
days. Up to the time of the battle, and for 
years afterward, it aimed at nothing more 
thati the regular classical course; but al- 



18 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

though its faculty was small, and its pro- 
fessors overburdened with the multitude of 
branches which each had to cultivate, 
nevertheless it had established an excellent 
reputation for the thoroughness of the 
training which it afforded. Among its 
graduates are the present Chief Justice of 
the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Hon. 
J. Hay Brown, and the present Provost of 
the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Ed- 
ward Fahs Smith. In 1863, Dr. Henry L. 
Baugher, Sr., was its President, with whom 
were associated as professors, Drs. Michael 
Jacobs, Martin Luther Stoever, Frederick 
A. Muhlenberg and Charles F. Schaeffer. 
The battle had scarcely ended when one of 
its former professors, General Herman 
Haupt, a classmate at West Point of Gen- 
eral Meade, was on hand at his old home, 
superintending the repair of the railroad 
connections of the Army of the Potomac. 
The community was as patriotic as it was 
inteUigent. Before Adams County was 



THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 19 

formed, when, during the Revolutionary 
War, Philadelphia had been occupied by 
the enemy, York, the county seat, was for 
nine months the capital of the new nation. 
The Marsh Creek Settlement and other 
Adams County districts contributed their 
quota not only to the Revolutionary Army, 
but even in the French and Indian War to 
the campaign against Fort Duquesne. 

In the convention to ratify the Federal 
Constitution, in 1787, presided over by a 
Lutheran minister, Frederick Augustus 
Muhlenberg, and including on its roll such 
names as James Wilson and Benjamin Rush 
and Anthony Wayne, the representation of 
that portion of York County which was to 
become Adams, was divided between Rev. 
John Black, the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian 
pastor, and Col. Henry Slagle, who was 
probably the citizen of German origin most 
prominent in public affairs. The county 
was named after the patriot who seconded 
the famous motion of Richard Henry Lee, 



20 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD- MESSAGE 

that "these colonies are and of right ought 
to be free and independent states." 

The first alarm of war to agitate the 
newly- founded town was on August 26, 
1 814. Very early on a Sunday morning 
tidings came that the British under General 
Ross had captured Washington and burned 
the public buildings. Strict as in this quiet 
place had hitherto been the observance of 
Sunday, it was probably the bell of the old 
court house that "immediately" brought the 
citizens together into that quaint structure 
with its lofty steeple, which stood in the 
center of the square; where, resolving to 
raise forthwith volunteer companies of in- 
fantry and cavalry to march to the defence 
of Baltimore, they appealed to the Brigadier 
General of the district, an elder in the Luth- 
eran Church, residing on the north side of 
"the Diamond," to put them in communica- 
tion with the Federal authorities. "Ex- 
presses" were sent both to Secretary of 
War Armstrong, to Frederick, Md,, and to 



THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 21 

Governor Snyder at Harrisburg, asking for 
arms, ammunition and equipage. Supplies 
coming from both sources with great 
promptness, enabled the Adams County 
troops, marching by way of Westminster, to 
take part in the defensive movement, which, 
if not resulting at North Point, September 
12, in decisive victory, ended, nevertheless, 
in the retirement of the invader, with the 
loss of the commanding general. All honor 
to the sons of Adams County, who in the 
companies of Captains Alexander Cobean, 
Alexander Campbell, T. C. Miller and 
Frederick Eichelberger, took their places, 
at that crisis, "on the shore dimly seen 
through the mists 'of the deep." Nearly a 
half century later, one who as a lad had 
been among their number, although rapidly 
approaching his three score and ten, in 
command of a cavalry company of Home 
Guards, was doing what he could to stay 
the advance of the Confederates up the 
Cumberland Valley. 



II 

The Prelude to the Battle 

The temporary isolation which Gettys- 
burg experienced when the building of rail- 
roads, during the decade or more previous 
to 1863, diverted travel and traffic, was in- 
terrupted when the necessities of the Civil 
War brought the old Hnes of communica- 
tion again into prominence. The academic 
quiet into which the town had passed when 
its institutions of learning and religion had 
become the main sources of income, was 
rudely broken, as the old roads which radi- 
ated from it became the avenues over which 
troops were moved. The Baltimore turn- 
pike was the real center of the battle. If 
General Lee and his army had reached it, 
the way to Baltimore and Washington 
would have been opened, and General 
Meade and his army would have been com- 
pletely cut off from the national capital. 

22 



THE PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE 23 

The problem of the latter was to protect 
Philadelphia in such a way as not to uncover 
Washington. This was accomplished by a 
wise utilization of the roads west of the 
Baltimore turnpike, running to the south 
and southwest of the town. Next to its 
roads its hills gave Gettysburg importance. 
West of the Blue Ridge, which forms such 
a prominent feature of the landscape, up 
the picturesque Shenandoah Valley, in Vir- 
ginia, and its extension, the fertile Cumber- 
land Valley, in Maryland and Pennsyl- 
vania, the Southern Army was moving. 
Its advance had passed Carlisle and threat- 
ened Harrisburg. The preceding week a 
division had actually crossed the mountain, 
and, passing through Gettysburg and York, 
had reached the Susquehanna, opposite 
Columbia, and then obstructed by the burn- 
ing bridge, reunited with their comrades to 
the north. East of the Ridge, and con- 
cealed from the enemy by it as a screen, 
the Union Army, first under Hooker and 



24 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD- MESSAGE 

then under Meade, was following the 
Southern Army, but on a parallel line, so 
as to protect both Washington and Balti- 
more. The two commanders were singu- 
larly unaware of the movements of each 
other. Lee's cavalry, under Stuart, had 
been separated from the Southern Army 
for days, and failed to give aid. The 
northward limit of the southern leader had, 
however, been reached. He determined to 
advance no farther until the whereabouts 
of the Northern Army could be determined. 
The advance was withdrawn and a move- 
ment to concentrate begun. Lee's plan, 
with the forces yet to follow him, was to 
move from Chambersburg eastward, in- 
stead of northward, and, crossing the Blue 
Ridge, to center on the foothills some eight 
miles west of Gettysburg, while Early, who 
had advanced to Carlisle, was to move 
southward toward Gettysburg. So close 
was the town to the southern border that 
from the outbreak of the war until nearly 



THE PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE 25 

a year after the close of hostilities it was 
in a state of insecurity. Alarms of the 
approach of the enemy were frequent. 
Hosts of refugees, with their horses and 
merchandise, crowded the streets as the 
Southern Army advanced towards, and sev- 
eral times even beyond, the Potomac. 
Merchants repeatedly removed their stocks 
of goods to safer quarters. Throughout 
the nights home guards patrolled the 
streets, arresting suspicious characters. The 
alarm was sounded on one memorable 
night in the very first month of the war, 
and threw the borough into as great fear 
as Rome experienced when the Goths and 
Vandals were at her doors. Timid women 
were seen on the street brandishing the 
antiquated firearms of a preceding genera- 
tion. 

The invasion of Maryland, culminating 
in the Battle of Antietam, September 17, 
1862, brought the war into adjoining coun- 
ties on the other side of the state line. Late 



26 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD- MESSAGE 

the same year a bold raid of the southern- 
ers, stealthily passing to the rear of the 
Federals, not only crossed the mountain, but 
sent its pickets to within six miles of Gettys- 
burg. A lone Confederate cavalryman, 
brought in as prisoner from a skirmish at 
'The Seven Stars," was regarded, as he 
was sent through the streets, with much 
curiosity. The quiet of a bright Sunday 
afternoon, the next day, was broken by the 
arrival of railway trains laden with Fed- 
eral troops, just one day too late to find 
their foes. Occasionally, in the recitation 
rooms of the college, the sound of artillery 
firing in the distance could be heard, punc- 
tuating a demonstration in conic sections 
or interrupting the interpretation of a 
passage in the Iliad with the reminder of 
the changes which modern times have 
wrought in the modes of warfare. 

When, in June, 1863, the storm that had 
long been threatening seemed likely to reach 
Pennsylvania, a proclamation from the gov- 



THE PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE 27 

ernor warned of its approach and made an 
urgent appeal for enlistments for an emer- 
gency force. The first response in the state 
to this appeal was from the students of 
Pennsylvania College, who promptly formed 
a company, offered the captaincy to one of 
the students in the Theological Seminary, 
Captain Frederick Klinefelter, who had 
already seen military service, and, under 
his command, promptly reported at Harris- 
burg, where a future President of Penn- 
sylvania College, Harvey W. McKnight, 
was made adjutant of the regiment, and a 
future President of Muhlenberg College, 
Theodore L. Seip, was detailed as clerk to 
the commanding general, while Dr. E. J. 
Wolf, afterwards professor in the Gettys- 
burg Theological Seminary, and the future 
Professor Matthias H. Richards, of Muhl- 
enberg College, served together as corporals. 
One of the company. Sergeant G. W. Fred- 
erick, was a brevet colonel before the war 
closed. Dr. T. C. Billheimer, afterwards 



28 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

professor in the Gettysburg Theological 
Seminary, was a private. These incidents 
are worthy of note as indications of the 
patriotic spirit that prevailed in the Gettys- 
burg institutions, as well as in the town and 
throughout the country. 

During the days of suspense, while the 
two armies were gradually making their 
way northward in parallel lines, concealed 
from one another by the Blue Ridge, the 
Philadelphia City Troop, under the com- 
mand of Captain Samuel J. Randall, after- 
ward the distinguished Speaker of the Na- 
tional House of Representatives, was sent 
to Gettysburg and reconnoitered the moun- 
tain roads. This company was followed 
some days later by the Twenty-sixth Penn- 
sylvania Emergency Regiment, which in- 
cluded, as Company A, the college company, 
as well as, in another company, the future 
governor of Pennsylvania, S. W. Penny- 
packer. On the Friday preceding the battle 
the regiment was sent westward, and nar- 



THE PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE 29 

rowly escaped surprise and disaster when it 
reached Marsh Creek, three miles beyond, 
but was extricated from its embarrassment, 
and after a skirmish with the enemy and 
the loss of some of their number as pris- 
oners, finally, retreating northward, entered 
the entrenchments at Harrisburg. The 
Confederates were too intent upon reaching 
Gettysburg to be diverted from their 
course. 

Looking from a garret window in the 
center of the town we were able, with the 
aid of a large glass used by the college for 
astronomical purposes, to catch the first 
sight of their approach as they descended 
from the mountain by way of the Cham- 
bersburg road. Much of the way was hid- 
den by Seminary Ridge, but we were able 
to reach the line at a higher elevation a 
few miles beyond. First a Union scout in 
full retreat, and then a Confederate picket 
in pursuit, came into view. Soon followed 
the cavalry, riding at full speed, then the 



30 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

artillery and infantry. Soon their cheers 
as they took possession of the street were 
heard. When we finally gained sufficient 
courage to venture where they were, we 
were surprised by the courteous treatment 
received, as we sought an officer and in- 
quired concerning the fate of the emergency 
regiment. Detailing a private to conduct us 
to a group of our friends whom they had 
captured, we were permitted to converse 
with them on the steps of Christ Church. 
Beyond burning a railroad bridge and the 
freight depot, no damage was done; and 
by an early hour the next morning the 
enemy had all departed. They were hasten- 
ing to richer fields, York and the Susque- 
hanna, with probable anticipations of reach- 
ing Lancaster, if not Philadelphia. 

For the next few days there was an omi- 
nous calm. With railroad and telegraphic 
lines destroyed, the town was isolated from 
the outside world. Mails were irregular 
and uncertain, daily papers were missed. 



THE PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE 31 

The funds of the bank and the goods of 
the merchants had been removed to places 
promising more security. As to the posi- 
tion of the two armies there was much 
speculation but no information. Now and 
then a bearer of despatches would dash 
through without relieving the suspense. On 
Sunday afternoon a Federal cavalry brigade 
came in from Emmitsburg, but after a very 
brief stay left just as suddenly. Everyone 
was in a state of uncertainty and expec- 
tancy. 

The Blue Ridge was well timbered; but 
here and there clearings were distinctly 
visible, from which smoke by day and fire 
by night could be seen, betraying the camp- 
fires of Confederates gathering for another 
descent upon the town. 

On Thursday, June 30, about 11 a.m., I 
was again at my watch-tower, and sweep- 
ing the Chambersburg road with a glass, 
noticed that something interesting was 
transpiring. On the second hill in view, 



32 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

horsemen were moving, but the field was 
too short to enable one to learn more. But 
after a brief pause they have descended the 
ravine and are on the crest of Seminary 
Ridge. Several mounted officers are clearly 
seen with their field-glasses turned to the 
southwest. Back of them is a piece of 
artillery. Still farther in the rear, as the 
line fell back into the hidden valley, the 
heads of men and horses could be seen. 
There is a long hesitation; then a sudden 
withdrawal back again and out of sight. 
Within a minute or two there is great cheer- 
ing in the street below me, which was invis- 
ible from my observatory. Running down 
stairs and out of the door, I am too late 
to see the head of the procession. A di- 
vision of Federal cavalry, under General 
John Buford, has come on the Emmitsburg 
road, and halts, with its head resting at 
Chambersburg Street. Years afterward I 
learned that the Confederate force I had 
seen near the seminary was Pettigrew's 



THE PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE 33 

Brigade, which had expected to find shoes 
and other suppHes in the town, but had seen 
through their glasses the approach of Bu- 
ford. Thus at noon on Thursday the two 
armies had almost stumbled upon each 
other transversely, the Confederates mov- 
ing eastward and the Federals northward. 
But the battle was not to be fought that 
day. Pettigrew retired three miles to the 
line of Marsh Creek. Buford was received 
in town with great rejoicing. His troops 
were fed in the streets with the best that 
the town could furnish. The bakeries were 
depleted, and many pailfuls of hot coffee re- 
lieved the thirst of these unexpected deliv-f 
erers. 

That afternoon I used the college glass 
from the cupola of the Theological Semi- 
nary. A most extended view of the sur- 
rounding country rewards every visitor who 
climbs to that observatory. Thence I looked 
down on one brigade of Buford's division, 
encamped near Willoughby's Run, while an- 



34 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

other was placed about a mile to the north 
of the college. The horses were quietly 
grazing and the troops resting. But still 
more interesting was what could be seen 
on the cleared spots of the mountain. The 
unusual clearness of the air brought to sight 
the masses of Confederates there assem- 
bling. At a distance of probably ten miles 
the men stood in clear relief by their 
fires or moved among each other. Their 
wagons with their white covers could be 
counted. Since there were many such 
clearings, and each one examined swarmed 
with men, there could be no doubt as 
to the formidable number which was 
ready to descend upon us. Nevertheless, 
our optimistic temper persuaded us that in 
case they would advance far on our side 
of the mountain, the force of General Bu- 
ford alone would readily repulse, if not cap- 
ture all. The brilliant sunset of that bright 
day was to thousands who were encamped 
near us the very last which they were to 



THE PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE 35 

behold. The critical hour was at hand. 
We now know that both Lee and Meade 
had each selected another spot for the ap- 
proaching conflict. Lee had chosen the 
heights above Cashtown or Hilltown, where 
we could see his forces gathering, while 
Meade had hoped to attract his opponent 
below the Maryland line, along Pipe Creek. 
But the eagerness of the leaders of their 
advance, in trying to discover the other's 
position, had carried both too far. Their 
vanguards met, and became entangled in an 
engagement which neither could decline. 



Ill 

The Battle 
a. the first day 

There were in reality two distinct battles 
about Gettysburg. There was one on the 
first day to the west and north, w^hich might 
with more appropriateness be called the 
Battle of Willoughby's Run, a little stream 
prominent early in the day. 

Firing, we were told, began at 4 a.m., as 
Buford's pickets engaged those of the 
enemy along Marsh Creek. For some 
hours it made no impression in the town. 
The people were accustomed to the muffled 
sound of distant cannonading. The profes- 
sors of Pennsylvania College met the rem- 
nants of their classes as usual at 8 a.m. My 
father had dismissed his class an hour later, 
when he was called into service by an officer 
of the U. S. Signal Corps and asked to ac- 
company him to the cupola for the study of 

36 



THE BATTLE 37 

the surrounding country. With his classes 
in geology, botany and surveying he had 
often explored the entire field and was 
thoroughly familiar with all its details. He 
accordingly insisted upon the strategic im- 
portance of Cemetery Hill as the key to the 
situation, and advised its prompt occupa- 
tion. Whether his opinion ever reached 
the corps commanders and determined the 
disposition of the forces we have no means 
of telling. On the one hand the strength 
of the position was such that one would 
think it would attract any military eye. On 
the other hand there was such great confu- 
sion shown on both sides in the initial stages 
of the battle that in the survey of an en- 
tirely strange country the opinion of a 
civilian who knew every acre of the terri- 
tory covered may have had unusual weight. 
The result certainly justified his military 
foresight. 

During the night of June 30 the First 
Army Corps, under General John F. Rey- 



38 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

nolds, had encamped eight or ten miles 
south of Gettysburg. Both Buford and 
Reynolds seemed to anticipate that until the 
main body of the Federal army would ar- 
rive they would be at a great disadvantage. 
Shortly after 9 a.m. the report was circu- 
lated that General Reynolds, anticipating 
street fighting, had ordered the citizens in 
the western part of the town to vacate their 
homes. The order was speedily counter- 
manded, as, in order to spare the town, he 
decided to meet the enemy on less favor- 
able ground on the west, where Buford's 
forces had spent the night. About 10 a.m. 
word came that the First Corps was ap- 
proaching. I was fortunate to be opposite 
the Eagle Hotel when Generals Reynolds 
and Buford dismounted, and, after a brief 
rest, rode out the Chambersburg road. 
They made their way to the Seminary 
cupola, and, after thus gaining a general 
idea of the field, went into action. 

It was an interesting sight to watch from 



THE BATTLE 39 

a favorable spot the First Corps as it left 
the Emmitsburg road on the outskirts of 
the town, and, forming under cover of 
Seminary Hill, in front of the MacMillan 
orchard, marched diagonally to the crest, 
and past the house built by Gen. Herman 
Haupt, into the thick of the battle. The 
firing is now terrific. The roar of cannon, 
the rattle of musketry, the shock of shells, 
the murky clouds that gathered to the west, 
the stifling odors that filled the air, the rush 
of orderlies through the streets, tell of the 
progress of the battle. The eastern slope of 
the hill is crowded with reserve cavalry 
awaiting orders. Soon streams of wounded 
begin to pour through the streets, mostly 
able to help themselves, while others rested 
on the shoulders of comrades. Then came 
the ambulances; and soon the tidings of 
the death of Reynolds. The opening of 
the engagement was favorable to the Fed- 
eral troops. An entire Confederate brigade, 
with its comm.ander at its head, was sent 



40 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

back to the rear as prisoners. General 
Howard soon arrives to succeed Reynolds, 
and surveys the field from the Fahnestock 
residence. 

But the Federal gain now meets a check. 
The Confederates are strongly reinforced. 
The firing to the north becomes sharp. We 
have won on the right, but the left is threat- 
ened. The southern generals, Early and 
Ewell, are reaching the field from Carlisle 
and the neighborhood of Harrisburg. But 
to the relief of our hardly pressed left wing 
the Eleventh Corps rushes forward from' 
the south on quick time. They come from 
Taneytown and dash into action past the 
grounds of Pennsylvania College and the 
hills beyond. A wave of cheers heard from 
far in the rear follows a blond officer who 
rushes on, with his horse on the gallop, to 
the very front. Steinwehr's division is left 
on Cemetery Hill. The rest strive in vain 
to check the Confederate onset. The left 
is completely turned and the Federal line 



THE BATTLE 41 

sweeps backward, not on a run, but with a 
brisk walk, the artillery covering the retreat 
with an abundance of grape sent into the 
foes as they press after them. 

On the Confederates press, until Stein- 
wehr's presence on Cemetery Hill checks 
the pursuit and saves the Federal army 
from complete disaster. If the result of 
the first day's battle be estimated by the 
damage inflicted on the Federal lines, it was 
a signal defeat. But if it had been Rey- 
nolds's object simply to hold the Confeder- 
ates back until the main body of the Fed- 
erals could reach the field in time to defend 
the approach to Baltimore, his death and the 
heavy losses of the two army corps were 
not in vain. 

Shortly after 4 p.m. the Confederates 
had possession of all the town except the 
southern extremities of Baltimore and 
Washington Streets, close to the Federal 
line of defence at the Cemetery. They were 
jubilant. They speedily leveled the fences, 



42 Lincoln's Gettysburg world- message 

in order to provide for the freest move- 
ment of their forces. A Georgia brigade 
held our street. Its field officers were gen- 
tlemen who by their affability made the 
citizens feel that until there would be an- 
other disposition of troops they had noth- 
ing to dread. They showed no insolence 
towards those whom they had defeated. 
The town was one vast hospital. The 
churches were full of wounded. The semi- 
nary was a Confederate and the college a 
Federal hospital. Many private dwellings 
held men of both armies. The temperature, 
fortunately, was mild, the thermometer at 
the maximum being only 74. The battle 
was fought with the sky obscured by clouds 
throughout the whole day, and the wind 
blowing steadily from the south. Night 
fell, and on its damp air were wafted the 
cries of the uncared-for on the field. The 
dead lay on the pavements and in the streets 
for days. 
That night was a busy one for both 



THE BATTLE 43 

armies, as only a small proportion on both 
sides were engaged on the first day; and 
the dispositions were yet to be made for 
what was, properly speaking, to be the real 
Battle of Gettysburg. 

The reader may picture to himself two 
concentric horseshoes, or fishhooks. These 
represent the two lines of this great engage- 
ment, as they ran on two ridges, distant 
from each other from three-quarters of a 
mile to a mile. Students in geology used 
to hear these ridges explained in the class 
room as trap dikes of volcanic origin within 
a red shale basis, that were elevated by 
some prehistoric convulsion. At several 
points, particularly at the Round Tops and 
Gulp's Hill, they rise to several hundred 
feet. The larger Round Top is in reality 
a conical mountain. The inner ridge, upon 
which the Federal troops were stationed, is 
much higher than the outer one, occupied 
by the Gonfederates. The front and center 
of the Federal line at the cemetery was 



44 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

pointed and faced directly the approach 
from town by way of Baltimore Street. 
Thence the Federal line was to the south- 
west nearly three miles, and terminated in 
the steep summit of Round Top, while on 
the other side it ended in the undulating 
sides of Gulp's Hill, rising above Rock 
Creek. On the west side it looked down 
on the lower elevation of Seminary Ridge 
and an extended intervening plain. From 
the rock of these ridges the farmers had 
built fences for their fields, providing the 
Federal forces in advance with a rock 
breastwork of long standing. The inner 
ridge was not only the higher, but the Fed- 
eral commander could send reinforcements 
from the one wing to the other simply 
across the diameter of the inner horseshoe 
or Greek Omega ( O ), while the Con- 
federate commander, to accomplish the 
same end, was compelled to march his 
forces along the circumference of his Hne. 
All the advantages of position were thus on 



THE BATTLE 45 

the Federal side. This line protecting the 
Baltimore Pike would have to be broken 
by Lee or he would have to retreat. Meade 
had no need to attack, but simply to stand 
on the defensive and invite his adversary 
to beat himself to pieces on this front. 
Against this rampart the southern hosts 
were hurled, and, after displaying a brav- 
ery the world has rarely equaled, ceased 
their efforts from sheer exhaustion. 

B. THE SECOND DAY 

The second day's fight did not begin until 
4 P.M. All morning troops were arriving 
and the lines on both sides fixed and 
strengthened. Early that morning an ob- 
server at the corner of Middle and Wash- 
ington Streets could have seen a line of men 
in gray aligned for a purpose not specified 
in the manual of arms. As a preparation 
they were silently reading from their New 
Testaments. It is needless to say that we 
could not but be inspired with respect for 



46 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

such enemies. Only on the retreat of the 
Federals on the first day was there fighting 
by our home; but stray bullets were fre- 
quently passing uncomfortably near. A 
Confederate was killed on our cellar door; 
a ball, piercing a shutter, fell on the floor 
within. The stock of provisions was rap- 
idly exhausted by the needs of the troops, 
and the citizens lived on the scantiest allow- 
ance. 

The long period of suspense was at last 
broken by a sudden and startling fire to the 
south. This, we afterwards learned, marked 
the famous attempt of General Sickles to 
straighten the line and advance it nearer 
Seminary Ridge. He had acted on his own 
responsibility, and came near making a dis- 
astrous blunder. Sherfey's Peach Orchard 
gained a name in history from the terrible 
contest raged around it as the battle wave 
swept southward, pushing its extremity be- 
tween the two Round Tops. Little Round 
Top presented, with its rugged and then 



THE BATTLE 47 

almost treeless face, a more commanding 
position than its neighboring height, which 
is really a mountain. If the Confederates 
would have occupied it their artillery would 
have commanded the entire Federal left. 
As the enemy advanced to take it, the Penn- 
sylvania Reserves, under General Craw- 
ford, charged down the hill, pushing their 
opponents not only from its slope, but from 
the ravine beneath, which, with its enor- 
mous granite boulders, afforded sharp- 
shooters protection. In the division thus 
engaged was a company recruited at Gettys- 
burg. One of its men is reported to have 
been wounded on his own farm. 

The Federal right had been weakened, in 
order, during the terrific engagement pro- 
voked by Sickles, to strengthen the left. 
Ewell, availing himself of this circum- 
stance, made a more determined attack. 
What was known as the right center lay on 
the northern front of Cemetery Hill, di- 
rectly across the entrance to Evergreen 



48 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

Cemetery. It was the very citadel of the 
Federal strength. The more prominent 
Federal batteries were here. Below its 
steep side, to the northeast, was a corn- 
field, hiding within its dense stalks the ap- 
proach to the meadow beneath. Covered 
by nightfall and this veil, the "Louisiana 
Tigers" crept to the foot of the hill, almost 
surprised the gunners, and, when the guns 
could not be used, engaged their defenders 
in a hand-to-hand contest. But relief was 
at last brought from the left, and the shat- 
tered Confederates withdrew. **It was 
worse," they said, "than Malvern Hill." 

Meanwhile just as critical an engagement 
was in progress still farther on the right. 
The extreme right rested on Culp's Hill, 
which was thoroughly wooded, with Rock 
Creek and the "Third Swamp" at its base. 
It was a long hill, and the best engineering 
skill had, during the night of the first day, 
erected a network of strong breastworks, 
for which the dense oak and hickory trees 



THE BATTLE 49 

afforded ample material. The line, five to 
six feet high, with its trenches, wound 
around the hill, so as to protect it, if needed, 
by cross-firing. The approach at the end 
near Spangler's Spring was gentle. Upon 
these fortifications Johnston's division of 
Ewell's corps flung itself. Night had al- 
ready fallen. The musketry, in its way, was 
almost as terrific as the artillery firing of 
the next day. So intense was it that in 
places the trees in front of the Federal lines 
were killed, and their dead limbs with dried 
leaves, raised like arms to heaven, gave the 
ravine the name of the Valley of Death. 

The Federals were so securely protected 
that their loss was small, while their brave 
enemies, persistent in their attempts, lay in 
heaps before the breastworks. The farthest 
right, however, had been abandoned by 
the Federal troops, when needed on the left. 
Here the Confederates entered without any 
serious conflict, and slept for the night, ig- 
norant that they had actually turned the 



50 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

Federal right, and that the Baltimore road 
was close by them. 

C. THE THIRD DAY 

The Federal commander gave them no 
time to discover by daylight what they had 
gained; but with break of day attacked 
them, spending hours in gradually forcing 
them away. 

From II A.M. to i p.m. there was another 
lull. The engagement on the extreme right 
in the morning was not felt in town, or to 
any great degree on the field. The whole 
forenoon was relatively quiet. After an ob- 
servation from the cupola of Pennsylvania 
College, General Lee arranged for a final 
effort to break through the Federal lines. 
The left center of the Federal lines, held by 
the Second Army Corps, under General 
Hancock, occupied the most exposed posi- 
tion on the Federal lines, southwest of the 
cemetery. It was immediately opposite the 
right and southern side of Seminary Ridge. 
Between the two there was a broad, open 



THE BATTLE 51 

plain, with few interruptions of trees or 
buildings. A conspicuous point on Han- 
cock's front was a group of young trees, 
known as the "clump of bushes." The plan 
of the Confederate commander was to con- 
centrate upon this point the fire of all his 
artillery, and to follow this by the massing 
of his infantry on the same place. There 
were no walls to batter down; the cannon 
shot had to fall on the ground or be carried 
far beyond through the unobstructed 
space. 

It was a sultry day. The sky was par- 
tially clear. The thermometer at 2 p.m. 
registered 87. At precisely 1.07 p.m. the 
signal gun sounded ; then came a second ; 
and then a terrific crash. For over an hour, 
from north, northwest and southwest, the 
Confederate batteries concentrated their fire 
on the Federal left center. The Federal 
guns joined in "the diapason of the can- 
nonade." Such a symphony .never had been 
heard before. My father quoted Rev. 10 : 4, 



52 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD- MESSAGE 

"Seven thunders uttered their voices." It 
was not one confused uproar; but each gun 
had its individuahty, and the explosions 
were distinguishable. There was first the 
discharge of the gun; then the scream of 
the shell rushing through the air, and then 
the report as it burst, carrying destruction 
and death in its pathway, breaking down 
walls or tearing horrid trenches in the 
ground. The two sides were also capable 
of recognition. An elderly lady sitting 
near us kept count of each shot with the 
words, "Ours," "theirs," "ours," "theirs." 
A great gun at the cemetery led the weird 
chorus. When it Vv^ould rest to cool, the 
question was involuntary, "Silenced?"; and 
then again the tense strain would be re- 
lieved as its deep, grufif voice would once 
more wake the echoes. 

But after awhile the Federal guns begin 
to slacken. We fear the worst. But, no. 
They are at it once more. But the intervals 
become longer. The chorus fades out. 



THE BATTLE 53 

Slowly, more slowly, still more slowly. At 
last all have ceased. But the silence that 
ensues is portentous. There seems to be 
such art in it as to justify the inference that 
an important move is about to be executed. 

My father, hastening to the garret, turns 
his glass on the Confederate right. He 
sees, on Seminary Ridge, a long line of men 
forming, supported by another ; and, at last, 
their onward march, in magnificent array, 
toward the Federal line. He watches its 
steady advance until it is hidden by inter- 
vening buildings. Then comes the sound 
of artillery and the crash of smaller arms. 
The din is resumed, but the tone is not so 
loud. It is not long until, through the 
wrecked cornfield, stragglers are seen al- 
most stealthily returning, a single battle- 
flag, a few hundred men, several mounted 
officers. I was called to share the sight. 

This was the famous charge of Pickett. 
It was really no charge, but the deliberate 
march of the brave Confederate troops over 



54 Lincoln's Gettysburg world- message 

a plain where for nearly a mile they were 
in full view of the Federal troops, upon 
whom they advanced. It looked as though 
nothing could stand before such magnificent 
courage. Lee had been so accustomed to 
the readiness of the Federals to retire be- 
fore the march of the Confederates, that he 
had not calculated upon the probability of 
changed conditions, where the Federal 
army stood on northern soil, and rejoiced 
in a new commander, in whom it had 
peculiar confidence. The disagreement be- 
tween Lee and the corps commander of the 
doomed division, Longstreet, is a matter of 
history. Longstreet's repeated protests 
were unheeded, and he rode away from the 
summit of the ridge when the death march 
across the plain began, that he might be 
spared the sight of what he felt must be 
the inevitable result. Lee also is reported 
to have candidly acknowledged, as he wel- 
comed back the few who returned, "It is all 
my fault." 



THE BATTLE 55 

Nevertheless, it is a serious question as 
to what advantage even the gaining of the 
Federal line would have been, since the 
conformation of the country is such that a 
line equally strong could have arisen in its 
rear. 

All through that night there were move- 
ments of troops through the streets, indi- 
cating very soon that the Confederates were 
on the retreat. At daybreak of Saturday, 
July 4, the streets were deserted, although 
a few hours later we were informed of the 
presence of pickets, who remained the rest 
of the day at the entrance to the town and 
amidst the heavy showers of rain attempted 
to reach with their fire any Federals who 
came within range. Even on Sunday, the 
5th, the peril continued, and early on that 
day General Howard passed our house with 
one of his staff mortally wounded from an 
ambuscade on the Hagerstown road. This, 
however, was only a cover for the precipi- 
tate flight of the Confederates towards the 



56 Lincoln's Gettysburg world- message 

Potomac then occurring. If General Meade 
could have fallen energetically upon the re- 
treating army before it could have crossed 
the Potomac, the war would have ended 
two years sooner. But the Federal troops 
had already been put to the greatest strain 
in forced marches, and days of fighting; 
and there is an end to human endurance. 



IV 

Gettysburg's Greatest Day — November 
19, 1863 

THE NATIONAL CEMETERY 

In his Gettysburg oration Mr. Everett 
quotes the Duke of Wellington as saying 
that "next to a defeat the saddest thing is 
a victory." The battle had ended on Fri- 
day, July 3. Amidst the heavy downpour 
of rain on Saturday (over an inch and a 
third had fallen during the afternoon and 
night) the enemy was constantly withdraw- 
ing his troops, under cover of an unbroken 
line of defence on Seminary Ridge. The 
horrors of the field passed all description. 
For weeks hundreds of horses remained 
unburied. Around the small house on the 
Taneytown road, where General Meade had 
his headquarters, I counted no less than 
fifteen. The wounded required so great at- 
tention, with houses, churches and barns 

57 



58 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

largely occupied, that the dead were neces- 
sarily neglected. Six thousand were killed 
in action, and every day hundreds more died 
in the hospitals. The soldiers of both 
armies tenderly laid their comrades to rest 
in hastily prepared graves. But the Federal 
dead of the first day's fight were uncared 
for by the enemy, who were in possession 
of the field. Even where the dead were 
buried it was often done most superficially. 
It was not unusual for them to have no 
more protection than a foot or two of hast- 
ily thrown earth, with their names written 
in pencil on a rude headboard from a piece 
of a cracker box. Many graves were un- 
marked, and in the endeavor to identify the 
missing many graves were opened and left 
in confusion. The time was approaching, 
also, when the farmers would plow the 
fields for the next year's crop. An influen- 
tial citizen, David Wills, Esq., afterwards 
judge of the Adams County Court, within 
a few days of the battle urged the impor- 



GETTYSBURG S GREATEST DAY 59 

tance of gathering the Federal dead into one 
cemetery ; and Governor Curtin, on July 24, 
gave the project his official indorsement. In 
August a piece of ground, covering seven- 
teen acres, was purchased for this purpose. 
It was the choicest spot on the entire field, 
with a magnificent view, extending for 
many miles, seen from its gentle but com- 
manding height. Within three months the 
removal of the dead was completed, and the 
grounds were laid out so as to assume the 
general appearance familiar to all visitors 
to-day. 

November 19 was finally fixed as the date 
for the dedication. Hon. Edward Everett 
was invited to deliver the oration, and 
President Lincoln to perform the act of 
consecration, or, as the request ran, *'to set 
apart these grounds to their sacred use by 
a few appropriate remarks." 

LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG 

The railroad authorities planned that the 



60 Lincoln's Gettysburg world- message 

President should leave Washington early 
on the morning of the 19th, reaching Gettys- 
burg shortly after noon and returning that 
evening. This plan did not meet with the 
President's approval, who justly thought 
that such a hurried visit would detract from 
the dignity and solemnity of the occasion. 
However exacting his engagements, he felt 
that the rush of business should pause while 
he attended the funeral of thousands who 
had given their lives in defence of their 
country. 

Accordingly, he arranged to reach Get- 
tysburg on the evening of the i8th. His 
train was delayed, and a large crowd had 
gathered at the little .depot on Carlisle 
Street, awaiting his arrival. Among them 
was Mr. Everett, who had spent the day 
studying the field. 

On his arrival, Mr. Lincoln, with other 
members of his party, was taken at once 
to the residence of Mr. Wills. This was a 
large three-story double house on the 



GETTYSBURG S GREATEST DAY 61 

southeast corner of the Diamond and York 
Street, where Mr. Everett was also enter- 
tained. Hon. WilHam H. Seward, the Sec- 
retary of State, was in a neighboring house 
on the Diamond. 

Time was scarcely given Mr. Lincoln for 
supper — those were not the days of Pull- 
man dining-cars — until a band serenaded 
him and a large concourse of people were 
clamorous for his appearance. They were 
not disappointed. He was willing to be 
seen and heard, but was unwilling to make 
a speech. The incident was characteristic 
of Mr. Lincoln. 

*T appear before you, fellow-citizens," he 
said, "to thank you for the compliment. 
The inference is a fair one that you would 
hear me for awhile, at least, were I to com- 
mence to make a speech. I do not appear 
before you for the purpose of doing so, and 
for several substantial reasons. The most 
substantial of these is that I have nothing 
to say. (Laughter.) In my position it is 



62 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD- MESSAGE 

somewhat important that I should not say 
foolish things." 

A voice : **If you can help it." 
Mr. Lincoln: "It very often happens 
that the only way to help it is to say noth- 
ing at all. (Laughter.) Believing that is 
my present condition this evening, I m.ust 
beg you to excuse me from addressing you 
further." 

Mr. Seward was then prevailed upon to 
speak, but by some strange fatuity seemed 
to take it for granted that those whom he 
addressed had been southern sympathizers. 
He expressed his gratitude that "You are 
willing to hear me at last." There is, we 
think, a trace of his having been apprised 
of what Mr. Lincoln was to say the next 
day in the words, "We owe it to our coun- 
try and to mankind, that this war shall have 
for its conclusion the establishment of 
democracy. . . . With this principle, this 
government of ours, the freest, the best, the 
wisest and happiest in this world, must be. 



GETTYSBURG S GREATEST DAY 63 

and, so far as we are concerned, practically, 
will be immortal." 

The nineteenth of November was an ideal 
fall day. There was scarcely a cloud in the 
sky. The thermometer stood at its maxi- 
I mum at 52, just warm enough to prevent a 
/ chill, and yet cool enough to be slightly 
bracing. The Army of the Potomac was 
too much occupied with the enemy to be 
represented on the occasion by any large 
number of its troops. A couple of regi- 
ments, however, headed the procession that 
moved sharply at 10 a.m., under the com- 
mand of Major-General Couch, out Balti- 
more Street to the junction with the Em- 
mitsburg road, and thence, by way of the 
Taney town road, to the western entrance of 
the cemetery, while those not in the pro- 
cession entered directly from Baltimore 
Street, through the main entrance. 

Standing on the upward slope of Balti- 
more Street, near the approach to the ceme- 
tery, and looking on the front of the pro- 



64 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

cession, the cheers of the crowd Hning the 
sidewalks told me of the approach of the 
President. On all sides he was greeted with 
enthusiasm. With appreciative smiles and 
continual bows, ''the tallest and grandest 
man in the procession" acknowledged the 
many cries of welcome, such as ''Hurrah 
for old Abe !" ; "We are coming. Father 
Abraham." He towered above everyone, 
and his gigantic proportions seemed to be 
magnified by the shape of the odd high silk 
hat that he wore. W^hy an abnormally 
small horse was given him to mount was 
hard to understand. In case the steed be- 
came fractious it looked as though the 
President could simply plant his feet on 
the ground and let it pass from under. 
/'About fifteen thousand people had as- 
<sembled in the cemetery. The arrange- 
ments, which had been well made, were car- 
ried out to the letter. The prayer, by 
Thomas H. Stocketon, D.D., of Philadel- 
phia, the chaplain of the United States 



Gettysburg's greatest day 65 

House of Representatives, was more prop- 
erly an eloquent rhapsody, most aptly ex- 
pressed by a minister whose dignified ap- 
pearance commanded high respect. 

EDWARD EVERETT 

Then came the formal oration by Hon. 
Edward Everett. There was but one opin- 
ion, and that was that of all men in the 
nation Mr. Everett was the one man to 
make the address. In his youth a famous 
Boston preacher; for ten years Professor 
of Greek, and afterwards President of 
Harvard ; a cultivated scholar and a student 
and expounder of the Greek models of 
oratory; United States Senator, Minister to 
England, Secretary of State, the intimate 
friend of English men of letters, he had 
attained a high place among his country- 
men. As the orator of the semi-centennial 
celebrations of the opening battles of the 
Revolutionary War, in the presence of 
many of their survivors, he connected the 



66 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

present with the past, Gettysburg with Lex- 
ington and Concord and Bunker Hill. 
There lived in the memory of the American 
people the great service he had rendered 
only shortly before the outbreak of the 
Civil War, in traveling, at his own charges, 
over the land, and repeating for one hun- 
dred times an oration on Washington, and. 
with its proceeds, enabling the association 
of women, organized for the purpose, to 
purchase Mt. Vernon for its preservation 
to future generations. From a defeated 
candidate for the vice-presidency on one of 
the tickets opposing Mr. Lincoln, he had, 
when the election had been decided, thrown 
himself with ardor into the support of the 
Union cause, and in advocacy of Mr. Lin- 
coln's policy had delivered another great 
oration scores of times throughout the 
cities of the North. His appearance was 
most imposing. Snow-white hair, delicately 
curled, overshadowed an intellectual fore- 
head, forming a striking contrast to his 



Gettysburg's greatest day 67 

piercing black eyes. His dress was notice- 
ably handsome. In every respect he had 
the bearing of the polished and cultivated 
gentleman. Mr. Emerson once said that 
what Pericles had been to Athens, Mr. 
Everett was to the New England of his 
day. Mr. Lincoln, in January, 1865, a few 
days after Mr. Everett's death, said of 
him : "His life was a truly great one, and 
I think that the greatest part of it was that 
which crowned its closing years." He 
spoke without a scrap of manuscript, in 
a clear, sweet, resonant voice. The one 
defect of the delivery seemed to be 
that it was too studied. Every sentence 
was thoroughly elaborated ; the emphasis 
and even the gestures seemed to have 
been predetermined. Nor was it deemed 
at the tim.e as having failed to ful- 
fill the high expectations that had been 
formed concerning what it would be. It 
was a model of classical oratory, meeting 
fully a high academic standard. An edi- 



68 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD- MESSAGE 

torial of The Press, of Philadelphia, of the 
next day sa3^s: "It needs neither compli- 
ment nor introduction; it is complete and 
perfect." *'It is well for Mr. Everett's 
fame that, in the fullness of his powers 
and toward the close of a career so rich in 
intellectual triumphs, such an opportunity 
should have been offered him. Not only 
his friends but the friends of our litera- 
ture should be proud of it. . . . It seems 
to have been intended for the future rather 
than for the present, and, no doubt, Mr. 
Everett, standing before the vast throng on 
Cemetery Hill, looked beyond it to the 
years when men will read more calmly than 
now the records of the war." The sugges- 
tion was made that it be introduced as a 
text-book throughout the schools of the 
country. 

But there are reasons why it is almost 
forgotten. The orator had attempted too 
much. An open air address of one hour 
and fifty-seven minutes' length could 



GETTYSBURG S GREATEST DAY 69 

scarcely hold the close attention of thou- 
sands, most of whom were standing on the 
cold ground; least of all when a large por- 
tion of the address was more philosophical 
than oratorical and the numerous classical 
allusions were lost on the multitude. The 
intense activity of life and thought intro- 
duced by the Civil War demanded more, 
direct and incisive modes of address. As 
officially pubHshed it has no less than three 
introductions. Unless our memory be 
greatly in fault — and its impressions are 
confirmed by the newspaper reports of the 
oration published the next day — the open- 
ing sentences in the official edition were 
prefaced to it only when it was prepared, 
after delivery, for permanent preservation. 
These sentences, however, so correctly 
described the scene upon which the orator 
looked, and are so beautifully expressed, 
that anyone familiar wath the spot must 
appreciate the addition: 

"Standing beneath this serene sky, overlooking 



70 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

these broad fields now reposing from the labors 
of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies tow- 
ering before us, the graves of our brethren be- 
neath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise 
my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of 
God and nature. But the duty to which you 
have called me must be performed. Grant me, 
I pray you, your indulgence and your sympathy." 

The audience was wonderfully patient; 
but evidences of weariness could not be 
entirely suppressed, and I took advantage of 
the movement to find a place directly in 
front of the platform, where I stood very 
near to where President Lincoln was seated. 

AN ELOQUENT PERORATION 

Mr. Everett has just reached the perora- 
tion: 

"And now, friends, fellow-citizens of Gettys- 
burg, and you from remoter states, let me again, 
as we part, invoke your benediction on these 
honored graves. . . . God bless the Union; it is 
dearer to us for the blood of the brave men who 
have been slain in its defence. The spots on 
which they stood and fell ; these pleasant heights ; 
the fertile plain beneath them ; the thriving vil- 
lage whose streets so lately rang with the strange 



GETTYSBURG'S GREATEST DAY 71 

din of war ; the fields beyond the ridge, where 
the noble Reynolds held the advancing foe at 
bay, and, while he gave up his own life, assured 
by his forethought and self-sacrifice the triumph 
of the two succeeding days ; the little streams 
which wind through the hills, on whose banks in 
after times the wondering plowmen will turn 
up, with the rude weapons of savage warfare,* 
the fearful missiles of modern artillery; Semi- 
nary Ridge, Peach Orchard, Gulp and Wolf 
Hills, Round Top, Little Round Top, humble 
names, henceforward dear and famous — no lapse 
of time, no distance of space will cause you to 
be forgotten." 

As in these words Mr. Everett was clos- 
ing his oration, Mr. Lincoln, I thought, was 
showing some of that nervousness which, 
according to Cicero, characterizes all suc- 
cessful oratory. His mind evidently was 
not on what Mr. Everett was saying, but 
on his own speech. He drew from his 
pocket a metallic spectacle case and adjusted 
a pair of steel glasses near the tip of his 



*The allusion is to the arrowheads and other 
relics of the North American Indians, that were 
formerly abundant in the "Third Swamp," along 
Rock Creek, at the base of Culp's Hill. 



72 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

nose. Then, reaching into the side pocket 
of his coat, he produced a crumpled sheet 
of paper, which he first carefully smoothed 
and then read for a few moments. By this 
time Mr. Everett had reached his final 
periods : 

"Surely I would do no injustice to the other 
noble achievements of the war, which have re- 
flected such honor on both arms of the service 
and have entitled the armies and the navy of 
the United States, their officers and men, to the 
warmest thanks and the richest rev/ards which 
a grateful people can pay. But they, I am sure, 
will join me in saying, as we bid farewell to the 
dust of these martyr-heroes, that wheresoever 
throughout the civiHzed v/orld the accounts of 
this great warfare are read, and down to the 
latest period of recorded time, in the glorious 
annals of our common country, there will be no 
brighter page than that which relates The Battles 
of Gettysburg." 

THE GREAT ADDRESS 

Mr. Lincoln's notes had been replaced in 
his pocket, but his spectacles remained in 
position. A dirge was then sung. Every 
eve and ear were strained as the President 



GETTYSBURG S GREATEST DAY 73 

arose, a majestic figure, in all the stateli- 
ness of his office and with the solemnity 
which befitted the occasion, not to deliver 
an oration but to formally dedicate the 
grounds. It was a sad hour. Any tumul- 
tuous wave of applause would have been 
out of place. The entire bearing of Mr. 
Lincoln showed how deeply he realized the 
seriousness of the act. It grieved him that 
there were many thousands who regarded 
him as personally responsible for the deaths 
which the exercises of the day called to 
mind. At no time more than when he stood 
before the newly-made graves of Gettys- 
burg did the injustice of this charge so op- 
press him. His sole effort, therefore, was " 
to convince the world of the overwhelming 
importance of the principle for which the 
war was waged and the heroes of the battle 
had fallen and his own life was being spent. 
The deep feeling of the speaker, com- 
bined with masterful self-control and 
firmly set purpose, made a profound im- 



74 Lincoln's Gettysburg world- message 

pression. There was something so unusual 
in the tones of his voice and in his mode 
of address, that long before those present 
were ready to weigh his words he had fin- 
ished. His remarks were limited to nine 
sentences. The suddenness with which he 
ended was almost startling. The first few 
lines of the address were spoken without 
notes. Then gradually drawing them from 
his pocket, he held in both hands the sheet 
on which they were written, making em- 
phatic gestures, not with his hands, which 
were preoccupied, but by bowing from side 
to side with his body. All told there were 
only two hundred and fifty words spoken, 
and just two minutes' time were occupied 
in their delivery. But rarely has the same 
amount of thought and argument been com- 
pressed within the same compass. 

We add the text, as officially published, 
with the marks of applause as reported in 
the newspaper accounts. The fact of the 
repeated applause we well remember, al- 



GETTYSBURG'S GREATEST DAY 75 

though we could not, without the memo- 
randa then made, venture to locate it. The 
more important variations are bracketed: 

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers 
brought forth upon this continent a new nation, 
conceived in liberty and dedicated to the propo- 
sition that all men are created equal. (Applause.) 
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 
whether that nation or any other nation so con- 
ceived and so dedicated can long endure. We 
are met on a great battlefield of that war. We 
are met to dedicate a portion of it [that field] 
as the final resting-place of those who here gave 
their lives that that nation might live. It is 
altogether fitting and proper that we should do 
this. 

But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we 
cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. 
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled 
here, have consecrated it far above our [poor] 
power to add or detract. (Applause.) It is for 
us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the 
unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly 
carried on [advanced]. (Applause.) It is rather 
for us to be here dedicated to the great task 
remaining before us — that from these honored 
dead we may take increased devotion to the 
cause for which they here gave the last full 
measure of devotion— that we here highly resolve 
that these dead' shall not have died in vain ; that 



76 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

the nation shall under God have a new birth of 
freedom, and that government of the people, by 
the people, and for the people, shall not perish 
from the earth." (Long applause. Three cheers 
for the President and the Governors of the 
states.) 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ADDRESS 

That the majority of those present did 
not notice his manuscript or the odd way 
in which it was handled or his awkward 
gestures, is not remarkable. The personal- 
ity of the speaker and the force of his 
words caused all else to be overlooked. To 
them, for the moment, it was a greater 
privilege to look upon that strong and 
kindly face, "the father of his country, the 
pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his 
heart, the thought of their minds articu- 
lated by his tongue" (Emerson). 

The thought of the address was not new. 
The theory of government enunciated, viz., 
the sovereignty of the people, had John 
Locke as its expounder in the seventeenth 
century, and is rooted still farther back in 



Gettysburg's greatest day 77 

the famous Recess of Spires, a century and 
a half earher. At the beginning of the 
fourteenth century, Marsihus of Padua, in 
his ''Defensor Pads,'' had boldly proclaimed 
this doctrine. Mr. Lincoln's argument is 
enunciated not as the fruit of laborious in- 
vestigation, or as a plan for the reconstruc- 
tion of society evolved from his inner con- 
sciousness, such as those of which the 
twentieth century is so prolific. On the 
contrary, he lays down certain axiomatic 
principles, recognized as the fundamental 
law by the founders of American independ- 
ence, and then, upon the assumption that 
these principles are thoroughly established 
and well known to his hearers, makes an 
earnest appeal to their consciences. The 
individuality of the speaker becomes ap- 
parent in the mode of presentation. There 
is not a superfluous word. Every stroke 
tells. Later generations must interpret the 
address in the light of his confession con- 
cerning the mental discipline to which as a 



78 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

youth he had subjected himself, as on more 
than one occasion he paced the floor of his 
humble sleeping-room far into the night, 
and could not think of sleeping until he had 
solved the problem with which he was 
struggling, and reduced his answer to clear, 
exact and condensed statement. An enemy 
of all vague and desultory thinking, he not 
only became a master of the art of expres- 
sion, but all the intensity of his nature was 
directed, in this address, upon one object, 
and that is the sublime climax with which 
it ends — the focus in which all its rays 
blend. 

No comparison was made at the time 
between the two addresses. Each speaker 
was regarded as having fully met the ex- 
pectations that had been awakened by the 
published program and by the opening 
prayer of the chaplain, who had ventured 
to characterize in advance the two ad- 
dresses, Mr. Everett's as "the pathetic elo- 
quence of venerable wisdom," and the 



Gettysburg's greatest day 79 

President's as "the honest tribute of our 
Chief Magistrate." But the importance of 
the latter constantly grew. It was strong 
in what it omitted as well as in what it de- 
clared. There is nothing in it concerning 
the abolition of slavery, upon which Mr. 
Seward had, in his doorstep address of the 
preceding evening, shown such readiness to 
descant, nor concerning the fallacy of the 
theory of states' rights maintained by the 
Confederates, against which Mr. Everett 
had argued at length. Nor does he in a 
single word denounce the men of the South. 
These, in Mr. Lincoln's opinion, were sec- 
ondary, and not fundamental issues. He 
confines himself, therefore, to the real bone 
of contention beneath all the other ques- 
tions. 

Nor must another prominent character- 
istic of Mr. Lincoln's address be overlooked. 
Both Mr. Everett, and Mr. Seward in his 
less formal address, following closely ora- 
torical models, emphasized the first person 



80 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

singular. A great orator is as a rule a great 
egotist. But Mr. Lincoln's address is with- 
out an "I" or a "me." He is one with those 
to whom he speaks. Nor is his "we," the 
"we" which is modestly used for an "I." 
He speaks as the representative of the audi- 
ence. "We are engaged in a great civil 
war," "We are met on a great battlefield," 
"We cannot dedicate this ground," "It is 
for us to be dedicated," "That we here 
highly resolve." The representative of the 
people must speak in the language of the 
people. As it was their cause and not his 
own that he was mentioning ; as it was their 
war and not his own — except as he was one 
of them — that was being waged, so the act 
of dedication was one in which, in his opin- 
ion, his personality counted for little, ex- 
cept as it expressed their will. The theory 
of government maintained in the address 
finds expression even in its rhetoric. There 
is a complete harmony between the thought 
and the form in which it is clothed, ^'He 



Gettysburg's greatest day 81 

is so eminently our representative man, 
that, when he speaks, it seems as if the 
people were listening to their own thinking 
aloud." (Lowell, "My Study Windows," 

p. 176.) 

Mr. Everett wrote to the President the 
next day: "I should be glad if I could 
flatter myself that I came as near the cen- 
tral idea of the occasion in two hours as 
you did in two minutes," and Mr. Lincoln 
answered : "In our respective parts yester- 
day, you could not have been excused to 
make a short address, nor I a long one. I 
am pleased to know that, in your judgment, 
the little I did say was not entirely a 
failure." 

Since 1863, the most eminent orators of 
the country have spoken at the many cele- 
brations held in the same cemetery, but 
none has received more than temporary 
notice. Within a few days of delivery their 
orations have been forgotten. For, to all 
time, there is but one Gettysburg oration. 



82 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

Mr. Lincoln's judgment, so trustworthy on 
all subjects, was for once deceived when 
in his modesty he declared, "The world will 
little note nor long remember what we say 
here, but it can never forget what they did 
here." For long as the world will remem- 
ber what the heroes who fell and the heroes 
who survived did at Gettysburg, will they 
remember also the interpretation of their 
heroic acts made there by President Lin- 
coln. 

The benediction pronounced on this mem- 
orable occasion by President Baugher, of 
Pennsylvania College, is worthy of preser- 
vation : 

"O Thou King of kings and Lord of lords, God 
of the nations of the earth, who, by Thy kind 
providence hast permitted us to engage in these 
solemn services, grant us Thy blessing. Bless 
this consecrated ground and these holy graves. 
Bless the President of these United States and 
his cabinet. Bless the governors and the repre- 
sentatives of the states here assembled with all 
needed grace to conduct the affairs committed 



Gettysburg's greatest day 83 

into their hands, to the glory of Thy name and 
the greatest good of the people. May this great 
nation be delivered from treason and rebellion 
at home, and from the power of enemies abroad. 
And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
the love of God our heavenly Father, and the 
fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you all. 
Amen." 



Lincoln's Ruling Principles of States- 
manship* 

Probably no native American has exerted 
a wider influence than Abraham Lincoln. 
His distinction is not that of Washington, 
as a calm and wise administrator in a great 
crisis, but beyond this, as the expounder of 
great principles brought to expression in the 
anguish of a terrific struggle. When he 
fell, by the hand of an unbalanced actor, 
the world had only begun to appreciate the 
worth of his character and the value of his 
services. The highest tributes then passed 
seem now very feeble. A long perspective 



*NoTE. — For the study of the topic of this 
chapter we especially commend the volume 
in the familiar series of "Everyman's Library," 
entitled, "Speeches and Letters of Abraham 
Lincoln, 1832-65. Edited by Merwin Roe, New 
York: E. P. Button & Co." It contains a very 
excellent introduction by Lord Bryce. It should 
be widely used in our schools and colleges and be 
in the hands of every intelligent American citizen. 

84 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 85 

was needed, that he might be seen in a true 
light. So humble was his birth and so plain 
his speech and so modest his claims for 
himself, that his closest friends did not 
realize what this many-sided man was. Un- 
trained in the learning of the schools, but 
with a mind singularly disciplined by ex- 
haustless efforts to master most difficult 
problems, a quick observer, an acute 
thinker, a sagacious philosopher, a master 
of the art of expression in language of 
classical purity, endowed with deep and 
tender sympathies, with a wide outlook, an 
inflexible standard of justice, a never- 
failing fund of humor, an exalted aim and 
an insatiable love of truth, and, when a 
great cause was at stake, reckless of self, he 
was a prophet, with a prophet's conscious- 
ness of a mission, a prophet's prevision of 
the future, and a prophetic voice directed 
to coming generations and scattering seed- 
thoughts which to-day are germinating all 
over the world. His strength lay, not in 



86 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

the originality of the truths upon whose 
recognition he insisted, but in forcing upon 
the attention and impressing upon the con- 
science of his contemporaries what had been 
long known and long forgotten. 

There were three most important contri- 
butions which he made to constructive po- 
litical science in America. It was his office 
not so much to formulate as to co-ordinate 
the three principles of national unity, 
states' rights and individual liberty. These 
are properly understood only when they 
modify and interpret one another. Any one 
of them accepted in isolation is a political 
heresy, never without advocates, who, by 
their propaganda, strike at the firm founda- 
tions of stable government. 

NATIONAL UNITY 

The statement has been made by an his- 
torian of high repute that, prior to Lin- 
coln's Gettysburg address, the term "nation" 
was rarely applied to the United States. 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 87 

We are told that, in concession to a singu- 
lar sensitiveness on the subject, the word 
was erased no less than twenty-six times 
from the preliminary draft of the Federal 
Constitution.* In 1851 the greatest of New 
England essayists wrote of "these thirty 
nations" ! 

For this there was some reason. As a 
rule a new organization is formed by the 
adoption of a constitution, upon whose 
terms the several members agree, and to 
which, in attestation of such agreement, 
they affix their signatures. But let us hear 
Mr. Lincoln on this point : "The Union is 
older than any of the states. Originally 
some dependent colonies made the Union, 
and the Union in turn threw off their old 
dependence for them and made them states 
such as they are. Not one of them ever 
had a state constitution independent of the 
Union. Of course, it is not forgotten that 



*Thorpe's "Short Constitutional History of the 
United States," p. 305. 



88 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

all the new states framed their constitutions 
before they entered the Union, nevertheless 
dependent upon and preparatory to coming 
into the Union." 

Prior to the Union, the colonies were 
mere dependencies of the British crown. 
Without the assent of the crown, they were 
without power to form alliances among 
themselves. It was by their union with one 
another without authority of the govern- 
ment, whereof they were dependencies, that 
they became states, free and independent of 
that government. 

The age of the United States is officially 
reckoned, therefore, not from the adoption 
of the Constitution, but from the signing 
of the Declaration of Independence. The 
birthday of the United States is July 4, 
1776, and not in 1787. Every President of 
the United States reminds the world of this 
with every proclamation which he publishes. 
The preamble of the Constitution begins, 
"We, the people of the United States, in 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 89 

order to form" not "a union," but "a more 
perfect union." Nine years before, the 
Declaration of Independence had closed 
with a sentence beginning, "We, therefore, 
the representatives of the United States of 
America in Congress assembled." 

Mr. Lincoln was right, therefore, when 
he began his Gettysburg address, "Four 
score and seven years ago our fathers 
brought forth upon this continent a new 
nation." The men who had fallen at Get- 
tysburg, he continues, "gave their lives that 
the nation might live"; and in closing he 
defines the nation as "a government," not 
of states, but "of the people, by the people 
and for the people." The nation or govern- 
ment is the people, organized under a char- 
ter that guarantees to every citizen within 
the nation protection in the enjoyment of 
every constitutional right. That the rights 
of each state, and those of each individual 
within each state, be maintained, the states 
must support one another. If the power of 



90 Lincoln's Gettysburg world- message 

all were not pledged for the protection of 
each state, what opposition could Delaware 
ever offer to any encroachment of Penn- 
sylvania, or how could Rhode Island with- 
stand any injustice from New York? In 
Colonial days there were armed conflicts be- 
tween Pennsylvania and Connecticut set- 
tlers, who claimed the Wyoming Valley, as 
well as between Pennsylvania and Mary- 
land before Mason and Dixon's line was 
satisfactorily determined. What, we may 
well ask to-day, would have been the issue 
of the late W^orld War, if all the discus- 
sions and preparations, made with so much 
difficulty and delay at Washington, espe- 
cially if all the terms of the Treaty of 
Peace would have had to wait upon the 
good pleasure of legislators at Phoenix and 
Little Rock, at Tallahassee and Olympia, at 
Carson City and Cheyenne and forty other 
state capitals? During the last half century 
the great development of our resources and 
the extension of our influence in every de- 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 91 

partment of thought and activity have been 
connected with the growth of American 
national consciousness. 

Although inherent in the Declaration of 
Independence, the Constitution of the 
United States defines and makes still more 
explicit this principle. The great battle for 
its adoption in the conventions of the sev- 
eral states, especially Virginia and Penn- 
sylvania, centered on this one point. Al- 
though the provisional federation had 
broken down and disintegration was threat- 
ened, the eyes of some leaders of undoubted 
patriotism were blinded to the vision of an 
efficient national organization. "Mon- 
archy," said one, "may suit a large terri- 
tory, but popular government can exist only 
in small territories. Does any man suppose 
that one general national government can 
exist in so extensive a country as this?" 
One who thirty years later was to become 
the fifth President of the United States 
actually insisted, "Consider the territory ly- 



92 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD- MESS AGE 

ing between the Atlantic Ocean and the 
Mississippi. It is larger than any territory 
that was ever under one free government. 
It is too extensive except to be governed 
by a despotic monarchy. Taxes cannot be 
laid justly and equally in such a territory. 
Are there not a thousand circumstances that 
show that there can be no law that can be 
uniform in its operation throughout the 
United States?" "Will the people of this 
great community," asked another wise man, 
''ever consent to be individually taxed by 
two different and distinct powers? These 
two concurrent powers cannot long exist 
together; the one will destroy the other; 
the general government being paramount to 
and in every way more powerful than the 
state governments, the latter must give way 
to the former. It is ascertained by history 
that there never was a government over a 
very extensive country without destroying 
the liberties of the people." (P. Henry.) 
How thankful should we be that there 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 93 

were those who insisted that if this be the 
testimony of history, it is well sometimes 
to fly in its face and try a new experiment, 
and that the precedents of the Old World 
are often misleading when applied to the 
New. What would these sages have said 
could they have heard that from a terri- 
tory now four times the area of that which 
they had in mind, millions of our troops 
had recently been transported, most of them 
in a single summer, across the Atlantic, in 
defence of free government, and that bil- 
lions of wealth were gladly and promptly 
offered to support the nation in its great 
struggle, after it had received that "new 
birth of freedom" of which Mr. Lincoln 
speaks in one of the least noticed but most 
significant phrases of his Gettysburg ad- 
dress ? 

A TRUE THEORY OF STATES' RIGHTS 

Just as important was Mr. Lincoln's defi- 
nition of state authority. The burning 



94 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

question, at the time of his election, was 
that of the extension of slavery into the 
territories, which were soon to become 
states. It centered on the right of the 
people of Kansas to decide whether they 
were, to be citizens of a free or of a slave 
state. For some years violence reigned and 
rival territorial governments were set up. 
There were some horrible massacres. Just 
on the eve of Lincoln's inauguration in 1861 
order was restored and Kansas was ad- 
mitted to the Union as a free state. Mr. 
Lincoln emphasized the right of the people 
of each state to regulate matters of internal 
administration. ''Unquestionably," he said 
in his first inaugural, "the states have the 
powers and the rights reserved to them in 
the national Constitution. . . . This relative 
matter of national power and states' rights 
as a principle is no other than the principle 
of generality and locality. Whatever con- 
cerns the whole world should be confided 
to the whole — to the general government; 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 95 

while whatever concerns only the state 
should be left exclusively to the state." 

"The great variety of local institutions in 
the state, springing from differences in the 
soil, differences in the face of the country 
and in the climate, are bonds of union. 
They do not make a house divided against 
itself, but make a house united. If they 
produce in one section of the country what 
is called for by the wants of another sec- 
tion, and this section can supply the wants 
of the first, they are not matters of discord, 
but true bonds of union." 

The constitutional theory of the state, of 
which Mr. Lincoln was the exponent, im- 
plies that the administration of the states 
is a department of the Federal administra- 
tion. Just as the Executive, the Legislative 
and the Judicial Departments are carefully 
distinguished and have been brought into 
harmonious co-operation, so the functions 
of the nation and of the state are distin- 
guished and guaranteed in the Constitution ; 



96 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD- MESSAGE 

and have now stood the strain of two ter- 
rific conflicts. 

Animated by this principle, he stood firm 
as a rock against the incessant clamors of 
radical agitators, who, from the very be- 
ginning of his administration, urged the 
emancipation of slaves, and who questioned 
the sincerity of his devotion to the Union 
when he was not moved by their appeals. 
Of his acts and failures to act there were 
no more severe critics than within his own 
party. Great as was his abhorrence of 
slavery — which as a native of Kentucky he 
had learned to know in its own home, and 
whose blight upon the development of the 
poorer classes, to which his nearest ances- 
tors had belonged, as well as of entire com- 
munities, he had closely observed — no less 
decided was he in antagonizing any in- 
fringement upon the constitutional rights of 
any state. "While we agree," he said, "that 
by the Constitution, in the states where it 
exists, we have no right to interfere with 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 9 7 

it, because it is in the Constitution, we are, 
both by duty and incHnation, to stick by that 
Constitution in all its letter and spirit from 
beginning to end." 

Emphatic as was his dissent from the de- 
cision in 1857 of the majority of the Su- 
preme Court in the famous Dred Scott case, 
he sought its reversal only by constitutional 
methods. That decision, in his judgment, 
was itself unconstitutional. A slave in a 
slave state being pronounced by the law as 
property, the Court declared must continue 
to be recognized as nothing more than 
"property" within any free state to which 
he would be transported. This meant, as 
Mr. Lincoln argued, that if in any state 
there were any one man intent upon having 
slaves, "all the rest have no way of keeping 
that man from having them." The particu- 
lar case involved he regarded finally set- 
tled; but the consequences of the premises 
laid down were such as to call for annul- 
ment whenever, in a constitutional way, it 



98 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

could be effected. Hence his well known 
warning, ''A house divided against itself 
cannot stand. This government cannot en- 
dure permanently, half slave and half free. 
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — 
I do not expect the house to fall; but I do 
expect it will cease to be divided. It will 
become all one thing or all the other." 

The South was entirely mistaken in re- 
garding him as sympathizing with the at- 
tempt of John Brown at Harper's Ferry to 
stir up an insurrection among the slaves. 
"John Brown's effort," he writes, "was 
peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. 
It was an attempt by white men to get up 
a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves 
refused to participate. In fact, it was so 
absurd that the slaves, with all their ignor- 
ance, saw plainly enough it could not suc- 
ceed. That affair, in its philosophy, corre- 
sponds with the many attempts related in 
history at the assassination of kings and 
emperors. An enthusiast broods over the 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 99 

Oppression of a people till he fancies him- 
self commissioned by heaven to liberate 
them. He ventures the attempt which ends 
in little else than his own execution." 

Nor had he any desire to seize an oppor- 
tunity to anticipate the abolition of slavery 
within the states in revolt. "The reckless- 
ness with which our adversaries break the 
laws should afford no example to us. Let 
us revere the Declaration of Independence, 
let us continue to obey the Constitution and 
the laws. Let us keep step to the music 
of the Union." 

He was reluctant also to use his power as 
President to determine legislation : "My 
political education strongly inclines me 
against a free use of any of the means by 
the Executive to control the legislation of 
the country." 

As, however, the war progressed, he en- 
tertained the hope that the South might be 
willing to agree to a constitutional provision 
for the gradual abolition of slavery after a 



100 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD- MESSAGE 

long term of years, and the payment to the 
owners of an equitable compensation for 
the loss of their property. In his second 
message, in December, 1862, he, therefore, 
recommended the following amendment to 
the Constitution: 

"Every state wherein slavery now exists 
which shall abolish the same therein at any 
time or times before the first day of Janu- 
ary, 1900, shall receive compensation from 
the United States, to wit: 

"The President of the United States shall 
deliver to every such state bonds of the 
United States, bearing interest at the rate 

of per cent per annum, to an amount 

equal to the aggregate sum of for 

each slave shown to have been therein by 
the Eighth Census of the United States," 
etc. 

What a remarkable proposition! If 
North and South had united upon this 
proposition, the war would have been short- 
ened by two years and four months, and 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 101 

more than half a million of lives would have 
been spared. 

But until the enactment of such amend- 
ment by the requisite number of states, he 
was for the time being helpless : "The peo- 
ple can do this if they choose, but the Ex- 
ecutive, as such, has nothing to do with it." 
"My paramount object is to save the Union, 
and neither to save nor to destroy slavery. 
If I could save the Union without freeing 
any slave I would do it; if I could do it by 
freeing all the slaves, I would do it ; and if 
I could save it by freeing some and leaving 
others alone I would do that also." 

When, on January i, 1863, the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation was published, it pro- 
vided only for the liberation of slaves in 
those portions of the South which were at 
the time in armed rebellion, passing over 
four states entirely, as well as a large part 
of Louisiana and Virginia. The act was 
done "by virtue of the power in me vested," 
not as President, but "as Commander-in- 



102 Lincoln's Gettysburg world- message 

chief of the army and navy, in time of 
actual armed rebellion against the authority 
of the United States, and as a fit and neces- 
sary war measure," ''warranted by the Con- 
stitution." The permanent abolition of 
slavery was not effected until, in 1865, 
thirty-one out of thirty-six states adopted 
the Thirteenth Amendment to the Consti- 
tution. 

INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY 

A third principle for which Lincoln 
stood was individual liberty within the state 
and the nation. 

True liberty consists not in arbitrary self- 
assertion and detachment from social obli- 
gations, but in the protection of each factor 
in the common body, in the particular form 
of service in which he recognizes himself 
best fitted to administer the highest common 
interests. This ideal can be reached only 
where a religious motive enters, and man 
acts under the conviction that both he and 
his fellow-men are subject to a higher 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 103 

power. The law of God is the universal 
charter of human freedom. This is a spir- 
itual matter requiring the Gospel of Christ 
for its interpretation. 

Nevertheless, even in purely civil matters, 
the same principle applies, as the law is 
enforced by the appeal made through it to 
the conscience of the individual. Mr. Lin- 
coln protested for years against the heresy 
that every man, woman or child is simply a 
piece of property, a chattel, which is to be 
treated by the law as a thing instead of a 
person. 

The words from the Preamble to the 
Declaration of Independence, "We hold 
these truths to be self-evident, that all men 
are created equal," were among his most 
favorite quotations. He was well aware 
of the flippant objection that was made 
that every-day experience teaches that men 
are neither born nor ever live on an equal- 
ity. But he answers : "The authors of that 
notable instrument did not intend to declare 



104 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

all men equal in all respects. They did not 
mean that all were equal in color, size, in- 
tellectual and moral development or social 
capacity. They defined with tolerable dis- 
tinctness in what respects they did consider 
all men created equal, 'Equal with certain 
inalienable rights, among which are life, lib- 
erty and the pursuit of happiness.* " That 
is, whatever inequalities otherwise may pre- 
vail, there should be no class legislation 
whatever, or class interpretation of the 
laws of the country; and, in the enjoyment 
of those laws all should be alike protected 
by the state. 

'T protest," he says, "against the counter- 
feit logic which concludes that, because I 
do not want a black woman for a slave, I 
must necessarily want her for a wife. I 
need not have her for either. I can just 
leave her alone. In some respects she cer- 
tainly is not my equal. But in her natural 
right to eat the bread she earns with her 
own hands, without asking leave of anyone 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 105 

else, she is my equal, and the equal of all 
others." 

He does not advance the right of an indi- 
vidual to assert independence of the state — 
for this cannot be done without invading 
the rights of other individuals. Anarchy 
and mob law are the worst form of despot- 
ism. The demagogue who seeks to level all 
distinctions is more dangerous than the 
most absolute tyrant. 

Concerning the relation between capital 
and labor he says : "That men who are in- 
dustrious and sober and honest in the pur- 
suit of their own interests, should after 
awhile accumulate capital, and after that 
should be allowed to enjoy it in peace, and 
also, if they should choose, when they have 
accumulated it, use it to save themselves 
from actual labor, and hire other people to 
labor for them — is right. In doing so they 
do not wrong the man they employ, for they 
find men v;ho have not their ov;n land to 
work upon, or shop to work in, and who 



106 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD- MESSAGE 

are benefited by working for others — hired 
laborers, receiving their capital for it." 

No government of the people can exist 
without organization; and organization is 
nothing more than the observance of dis- 
tinctions, in various degrees and relations, 
between rulers and ruled. So far from be- 
ing ochlocracy or mobocracy, democracy is 
the most thoroughly organized form of 
government. In it the rights of all are most 
securely guarded against both the many and 
the few. "People" means more than an 
aggregate of human units, but such units 
consolidated into a corporate organism, with 
the same hopes and fears and purposes and 
interests, conspiring towards a common end, 
each having a sense both of his individual 
and his corporate responsibilities. (See i 
Peter 2:9.) The highest end of the nation 
is the highest welfare of all its people. Gov- 
ernment is by the people when the people 
in constitutional order make and administer 
the laws, and legislators act neither for the 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 107 

majority nor for the minority, but for all the 
people. The ultimate appeal is not to force, 
but to the intelligence and conscience of all 
the people. ''With public sentiment," said 
Mr. Lincoln, "nothing can fail; without it, 
nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who 
molds public sentiment goes deeper than 
he who enacts statutes or pronounces de- 
cisions. He makes statutes and decisions 
possible or impossible to be executed." 
"While the people retain their virtue and 
intelligence," he says at another time, "no 
administration, by any extreme of wicked- 
ness or folly, can very seriously injure the 
government in the short space of four 
years." But so far as he was concerned 
the path of duty was plain; it was to be 
true to the people. They had put a trust in 
his hands, from whose strict administration 
he could not deviate. Personal concessions 
which, with his tender heart, he would be 
inclined to make, had to be declined ; for he 
was the agent of the people. He defines 



108 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

his duty as "to administer the present gov- 
ernment as it came to his hands, and to 
transmit it unimpaired to his successor." 
"You have no oath registered in heaven to 
destroy this government, while I shall have 
the most solemn one to preserve, protect 
and defend it." 

The helm of state was in his hand, and 
he held it true to its course, in the interest 
of all the people, for all time, and with a 
never absent sense of responsibility to the 
final Tribunal, before which all rulers, as 
well as all people, must render an account, 
and where the Right and the True must 
ultimately prevail. "Let us have faith that 
Right makes Might; and, in that faith, let 
us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we 
understand it." He is not deceived by the 
hallucination of any incapacity of the people 
for error ; for it has been well said that "his 
faith in God was qualified by a very well- 
founded distrust of the wisdom of men." 
But he is confident in the resistless force of 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 109 

sound principles, before which error must 
succumb. 

ORIGIN OF THE PHRASE 

As to the origin of the watchword of 
democracy, "Government of the people, by 
the people, for the people," with which the 
address ends, it is only the precise form 
and setting that are Mr. Lincoln's. It was 
in the very atmosphere which he breathed, 
and he only gave it the expression and ap- 
plication that were needed for the hour. A 
year before, Henry Ward Beecher had said, 
*'In all Europe there is a steady progress 
towards the last great form of civil gov- 
ernment, viz., republican government, or 
government of the people^ by the people," 
"Having taken the first steps of government 
of the people, by the people, our national 
life may collapse." 

In the same adddress, this frequent con- 
fidential adviser of Mr. Lincoln repudiates 
the injustice of any atheistic interpretation 
of the phrase, in the following words : 



110 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

"All government," he said, *'is ordained 
of God; and civil governments are so, not 
as by revelation and ordination, but because 
the nature of man necessitates govern- 
ment. God made men need clothes, but He 
never cut out a pattern for them to make 
their clothes by. He left them to choose 
their own raiment. God made man's neces- 
sity for government, and that necessity of 
government wrought civil governments. 
Governments are always the legitimate out- 
workings of the condition of those gov- 
erned, and there cannot be, for any pro- 
tracted time, a government that is not in 
the nature of things adapted to those under 
it. . . . There can be no self-government, 
except where there is virtue, intelligence 
and moral worth. . . . Self-government by 
the whole people is the teleological idea." 
Thus the people are qualified for self- 
government, when their prerogatives are 
recognized as trusts from God and a-dmin- 
istered in His fear. 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP HI 

Nor .could so able a lawyer as was Lin- 
coln have been unacquainted with several 
of the most important opinions of Chief 
Justice Marshall, distinguished among 
American jurists as **the expounder of the 
Constitution," who, in "McCulloch vs. the 
State of Maryland" (1816), his colleagues 
concurring, declared: "The government 
of the Union is emphatically and truly a 
government of the people. In form and in 
substance it emanates from them. Its pow- 
ers are granted by them, and are to be ex- 
ercised directly on them and for their bene- 
fit." These forty words of the Supreme 
Court of the United States are thus con- 
densed by Lincoln into ten. Nor can any 
better exposition of Lincoln's words be 
found than later in the same opinion, where 
the court continues : "No political dreamer 
was ever wild enough to think of breaking 
down the lines which separate the states, 
and of compounding the American people 
in one common mass. Of consequence, 



112 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

when they act, they act in their states. But 
the measures they adopt do not on that ac- 
count cease to be the measures of the peo- 
ple themselves. . . . The government pro- 
ceeds directly from the people; is ordained 
and established in the name of the people; 
and is declared to be ordained, 'in order to 
form a more perfect union, establish justice, 
insure domestic tranquillity and secure the 
blessings of liberty to themselves and their 
posterity.' The assent of the states, in their 
sovereign capacity, is implied in calling a 
convention, and thus submitting the instru- 
ment to the people. But the people were 
at liberty to accept or reject it; and their 
act was final. It required not the affirm- 
ance and could not be negatived by the 
state governments. The Constitution, when 
thus adopted, was of complete obligation 
and bound the state sovereignties." 

So in "Cohens vs. the State of Virginia" 
(i83i): 

"In war we are one people; in making 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 113 

peace we are one people; in all commercial 
regulations we are one and the same peo- 
ple. In many other respects the American 
people are one. And the government which 
is alone capable of controlling and manag- 
ing their interests in these respects, is the 
government of the Union. America has 
chosen to be, in many respects and for many 
purposes, a nation; and for all these pur- 
poses her government is complete; to all 
these objects it is competent. The people 
have declared that in the exercise of all 
powers given for these objects it is su- 
preme. It can then, in effecting these ob- 
jects, control all individuals or governments 
within the American territory. The Con- 
stitution and laws of a state, so far as they 
are repugnant to the Constitution and laws 
of the United States, are absolutely void. 
These states are constituent parts of the 
United States. They are members of one 
great empire ; for some purposes, sovereign ; 
for some purposes, subordinate." 



114 Lincoln's Gettysburg world- message 



Nor should the words of Marshall's great 
colleague and friend, Justice Story, be over- 
looked, who in his ''Commentaries on the 
Constitution of the United States," says: 
"They" i. e., the people, "have made it a 
limited government. They have defined its 
authority. They have restrained it to the 
exercise of certain powers, and reserved all 
others to the states or to the people. It is 
a popular government. Those who admin- 
ister it are responsible to the people. It is 
as popular, and just as much emanating 
from the people, as the state governments. 
It is created for one purpose ; the state gov- 
ernments for another. It may be altered 
and amended and abolished at the will of 
the people. In short: 

''It zuas made by the people, made for the 
people, and is responsible to the people/' 

The "Bills," or "Declarations of Rights,'* 
made long before the Federal Constitution 
by the several states, as fundamental to 
their state Constitutions, give diversified 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 115 

but no less decided expression to the same 
principle. Thus Pennsylvania declared and 
still declares: "All power is inherent in 
the people, and all free governments are 
founded on their authority, and for their 
peace, safety and happiness"; and Virginia 
still earlier: "All power is vested in, and 
consequently derived from, the people." 
"Government is, or ought to be, instituted 
for the common benefit, protection and 
security of the people, nation or com- 
munity." 

THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT 

Much has been written concerning the 
religious attitude of Mr. Lincoln. Men 
most closely associated with him have dif- 
fered on this question. While not raised 
within the Church, his early years were not 
without close contact with religious people. 
He ascribed most of his success in life to 
the consistent Christian character of a de- 
voted stepmother, who lived to see him 
elected to the presidency. That he was a 



116 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

diligent student of the Bible is attested not 
only by his own confession but by the evi- 
dence shown in his writings and speeches. 
Theodore Roosevelt made a most interest- 
ing allusion to this in an address in 1901, 
before the American Bible Society, on 
"Reading the Bible" : ''Lincoln, sad, pa- 
tient, kindly Lincoln, who, after bearing 
upon his shoulders for four years a greater 
burden than that borne by any other man 
of the nineteenth century, laid down his life 
for the people, whom living he served so 
well, built up his entire reading upon his 
study of the Bible. He had mastered it 
absolutely, mastered it as later he mastered 
only two or three other books, notably 
Shakespeare ; mastered it so that he became 
almost a man of one book." 

He was a man of prayer. All his refer- 
ences to religious matters, in the period 
when the world knew him, are in a rever- 
ent spirit. He never fails in his confession 
of dependence upon providential guidance, 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 117 

and in asking, in every great emergency, for 
the prayers of the people. At Gettysburg 
he makes this confession in the words, 
"The nation, under God, shall have a new 
birth of freedom." 

As the crisis of his life approaches, the 
religious side of his character comes more 
and more to expression. It is not unusual 
to find a deepening of the religious life at- 
tending the increasing weight of grave re- 
sponsibilities. Nor should we think that 
the prayers of hundreds of thousands of 
devout Christians for him should have been 
without an answer. One of the most emi- 
nent of English lawyers, Professor Dicey, 
of Oxford University, says in the Contem- 
porary Review for January, 1919: 

"One cannot doubt that in the case of 
Lincoln increase of power went on con- 
stantly increasing his sense of responsibil- 
ity, and his intense determination to per- 
form to the full his duty to the nation and 
to God." ~^' 



118 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD- MESSAGE 

Bidding his neighbors at Springfield 
good-bye, as he goes to undertake a task 
which he divines "may be greater than that 
which rested on Washington." he confesses : 
"Without the assistance of the Divine 
Being, who ever attended him, I cannot suc- 
ceed. With that assistance I cannot fail. 
Trusting in Him who can go with me and 
remain with you, and be everywhere for 
good, let us confidently hope that all will 
yet be well. To His care commending you, 
as I hope that in your prayers you will 
commend me, I bid you an affectionate fare- 
well." 

In replying, on May 6, 1862, to an ad- 
dress sent him by the General Synod of the 
Lutheran Church, he said among other 
things that "This government places its 
whole dependence upon the favor of God. 
I now humbly and reverently reiterate the 
acknowledgment of that dependence, not 
doubting that, if it please the Divine Being 
who determines the destinies of nations, this 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 119 

shall remain a united people." 

In one of the darkest hours of the war, 
publishing a proclamation for a Day of 
Humiliation and Prayer, on April 30, 1863, 
he says: 

"We have been the recipients of the 
choicest bounties of heaven; we have been 
preserved these many years in peace and 
prosperity; we have grown in numbers, 
wealth and power as no other nation has 
ever grown. But we have forgotten God. 
. . . We have vainly imagined, in the de- 
ceitfulness of our hearts, that all those 
blessings were produced by some superior 
wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated 
with unbroken success, we have become too 
self-sufficient to feel the necessity of re- 
deeming and preserving grace, too proud to 
pray to the God that made us." 

Then when, in answer to prayer, the hour 
of victory came ; when Gettysburg had been 
won and Vicksburg had fallen simultane- 
ously, there came a second proclama- 



120 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

tion, this time of thanksgiving: "No hu- 
man counsel hath decree i, nor hath any 
mortal counsel wrought out these great 
things. They are the gracious gifts of the 
Most High God, who, while dealing with 
us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless 
remembered mercy." 

And yet, during the same summer, he 
warns against over-confidence: "Let us 
not be over-sanguine of a speedy and final 
triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us 
diligently apply the means, never doubting 
that a just God, in His own good time, will 
give us the rightful results." This is the 
echo of the words with which he ended his 
great Cooper Institute speech in February, 
i860: "Let us have faith that right makes 
might, and, in that faith, let us to the end 
do our duty as we understand it." 

In his second inaugural it seems almost 
as though one of the Old Testament 
prophets were speaking: "The Almighty," 
he declared, "has His own purposes. 'Woe 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 121 

unto the world because of offences; for it 
must needs be that offences come, but woe 
to that man through whom they come.' If 
we shall suppose that African slavery is 
one of those oft'ences which, in the provi- 
dence of God, must needs come, but which, 
having continued through His appointed 
time, He now wills to remove, and that He 
gives to both North and South this terrible 
war as the woe due to those by whom the 
offence came, shall we discern therein any 
departure from those divine attributes 
which believers in a living God always 
ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fer- 
vently do we pray that this mighty scourge 
of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God 
wills that it continue until all the wealth 
piled by the bondsmen's two hundred and 
fifty years of unrequited toil, shall be sunk, 
and until every drop of blood drawn with 
the lash shall be drawn with the sword, so 
still it must be said, as it was said three 
thousand years ago, 'The judgments of the 



122 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

Lord are true and righteous altogether.' " 

Such are the confessions of a man to 
whom his contemporaries, with common 
consent, accorded the title of "honest" — 
one whose reputation it was that he meant 
every word that he spoke. 

Pleading, in his third message, for the 
North American Indians, he urges : "Sound 
policy and our imperative duty to these 
wards of the government demand our anx- 
ious and constant attention to their material 
well-being, to their progress in the arts of 
civilization, and above all to that moral 
training which, under the blessing of Divine 
Providence, will confer upon them the ele- 
vated and sanctifying influences, the hopes 
and consolations of the Christian faith." 

Deeply concerned about the threatened 
secularization of Sunday, he issued, Novem- 
ber 15, 1862, a "General Order Respecting 
the Observance of the Sabbath Day in the 
Army and Navy." The order begins : "The 
President, the Commander-in-Chief of the 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 123 

army and navy, desires and enjoins the or- 
derly observance of the Sabbath by the offi- 
cers and men in the mihtary and naval 
service. The importance for man and beast 
of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred 
rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a 
becoming deference to the best sentiment 
of a Christian people, and a due regard for 
the divine will, demand that Sunday labor 
in the army and navy be reduced to the 
measure of sheer necessity. The discipline 
and character of the national forces should 
not suffer, nor the cause be imperiled by 
the profanation of the day or name of the 
Most High." He closes in the words of 
the father of his country, "in the first 
General Order after the Declaration of In- 
dependence." "The General hopes and 
trusts that every officer and man will en- 
deavor to live and act as becomes a Chris- 
tian soldier defending the dearest rights and 
liberties of his country." President Wilson 
is to be commended for having reissued this 



124 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

order during the late war. 

Many pages could be filled with the testi- 
mony of men of established reputation con- 
cerning his confidential conversations on re- 
ligious subjects. That in his earlier years 
he thought and spoke differently, detracts 
nothing from the sincerity of his utterances 
or the firmness of his mature religious faith. 
Every advocate of the Christian faith, it 
may be said, once regarded it not simply 
with indifference, but with positive hostil- 
ity. The Lincoln of whom we here speak 
is the Lincoln of the Gettysburg message, 
tempered in the fires and disciplined in the 
school of adversity, who realized that he 
faced the greatest crisis in American 
history. 

In one of these interviews, reported by 
the Superintendent of Public Instruction of 
the State of Illinois of that time to have 
occurred on the eve of his election to the 
presidency, Mr. Lincoln is quoted as having 
said, "I am not a Christian — God knows I 



RULING PRINCIPLES OF STATESMANSHIP 1 25 

would be one" ; and then, in almost the same 
breath, **I am nothing, but truth is every- 
thing. I know I am right, because I know 
that Hberty is right, for Christ teaches it, 
and Christ is God. . . . These men will find 
that they have not read their Bible aright." 
But one who thus reads the Bible and im- 
plicitly follows its directions, and who, on 
its testimony, believes that Christ is God 
and calls God to witness that he "would be 
a Christian," has already that which he 
earnestly desires. "No man can say that 
Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." 
Men may be true Christians, and, neverthe- 
less, unable to adjust their interpretation of 
Christianity to conflicting standards, which 
they find set up, as the tests of the truth 
of their profession.* 



♦References may be made to the following 
books : "Abraham Lincoln the Christian. By 
W. J. Johnson. New York : Eaton and Mains, 
1913." This is an excellent discussion, rich in 
citations and incidents. Its value is increased by 
the Foreword of Dr. W. H. Roberts, the Stated 
Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presby- 



126 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 



terian Church, who for over a year worshiped in 
the same church with Mr. Lincohi and writes of 
the impression made upon him by the President's 
regular attendance not only on Sundays but also 
at the weekday service. 

''Latest Light on Abraham Lincoln, By 
Ervin Chapman. New York : F, H. Revell & Co., 
1917." The fruit of over fifty years' collection of 
data. 

As to Mr. Lincoln's right to claim that we 
are "a Christian people," see Supreme Court of 
U. S. (Story) on Girard Will (1844): "Al- 
though Christianity be a part of the Common 
Law of the state, yet it is so in a qualified sense 
— that it sdivine origin and truth are admitted, 
and, therefore, it is not to be openly reviled and 
blasphemed against, to the annoyance of be- 
lievers and the injury of the public." Compare 
Daniel Webster's elaborate argument in same 
case, and decision of Pennsylvania Supreme 
Court in 1824, Updcgraff vs. the Co?nm., 11 Ser- 
geant and Rawle, 394. 



VI 

Summary 

The government established "four score 
and seven years" before the events that 
made Gettysburg conspicuous, was a great 
experiment. Unhke any that had preceded, 
the very attempt to balance conflicting in- 
terests and to afford checks against one- 
sided and premature administrative acts, 
necessitated a high degree of intelhgence 
and character for the carrying out of its 
complicated provisions. Its one great safe- 
guard was what many regarded its greatest 
weakness. The highest human court of ap- 
peal which it constituted was the conscience 
of a well-informed, free and God-fearing 
people. The principle upon which it rests 
is that of the inherent strength of what is 
just and true, and the confidence that God 
has so constituted man's moral sense that 
in the long run he can be satisfied with noth- 

127 



128 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

ing that conscience does not approve. The 
government of the many is more to be 
trusted than that of the few; for out of 
the many those may be expected to arise 
who, in their assertion of the claims of 
justice, will ultimately prevail, when the 
majority betray great principles. Hence the 
force of Mr. Lincoln's often quoted adage 
to the effect that while some of the people 
may be always deceived, and all the people 
may be sometimes deceived, it is impossible 
to deceive all the people for all time. 

To devise and establish such a govern- 
ment was a great achievement. To admin- 
ister it successfully for a century and more, 
so that the elements of which it is composed 
did not fall apart of their own weight, but 
were only more thoroughly consolidated as 
time advanced, was still more important. 
President Lincoln stands forth for all time 
as the wise leader in the crisis when popular 
government was put to its severest test. 
Then, this peril having passed, it bore the 



SUMMARY 129 

scarce less severe strain of unprecedented 
prosperity. The rapid development of its 
territory of imperial proportions; the vast 
accumulation of wealth with its correspond- 
ing depreciation of spiritual standards; the 
great swell in the waves of immigration in- 
corporating with our body politic large 
masses of imperfectly assimilated material, 
whose ideals require many years to change; 
as well as widely differentiated revolution- 
ary theories of social organization, arraying 
class against class, revealed new dangers. 
Then, too, so suddenly has the change come 
that we can hardly realize it, in spite of all 
our inclinations, we have been drawn in 
recent days into a position of which neither 
the founders of our nation nor President 
Lincoln ever dreamed. His name has be- 
come the rallying cry for freedom through- 
out the Vv^orld. That government which was 
contemptuously regarded by some as the 
very weakest, has come forth from the most 
deadly conflict the world has ever seen, as 



130 LINCOLN S GETTYSBURG WORLD-MESSAGE 

the very strongest. It has become a recog- 
nized leader in the government of the earth, 
and the arbiter among the historic nations 
of the Old World. All predictions of the 
purely ephemeral character, the incoherence 
and inefficiency of democratical institutions 
when applied to world issues have failed, 
and, as in the general earthquake which has 
overwhelmed all Europe, monarchy after 
monarchy topples into disaster and ruin, the 
fact is recognized that, so far as its secular 
course is concerned, the one hope of the 
world lies in those words of Lincoln spoken 
at Gettysburg, which, Lord Bryce says, 
"have passed into the minds of all educated 
men everywhere." 

But let not those final words be misun- 
derstood. He spake no prophecy, but 
sounded an alarm and a call to duty. He 
announced that even such a government 
could fail, and inevitably would fail, if those 
to whom it was intrusted -were negligent in 
the maintenance of their rights. Its per- 



SUMMARY 131 

petuation is conditioned upon the average 
intelligence of its citizens, their appreciation 
of the blessings of liberty, and that deep 
and controlling sense of individual responsi- 
bility that is rooted in the religious life. No 
people is so highly favored that it is in- 
capable of sinking to a level beneath which 
the administration of a democratic govern- 
ment is an impossibility. For this reason 
the address aimed to arouse the country to 
the seriousness of the task of holding fast 
to that to which it had already attained. If 
America fail in this task, it announces that 
the great idea of popular government 
throughout the world will vanish. The 
same thought of the world-wide mission of 
the United States was expressed by Presi- 
dent Lincoln in his Independence Hall ad- 
dress (February 22, 1861) : "The Declara- 
tion of Independence gave liberty not alone 
to the people of this country, but hope to 
all the world for all future time. It was 
that which gave promise that in due time 



132 Lincoln's Gettysburg world-message 

the weights would be lifted from the shoul- 
ders of all men, and that all should have an 
even chance." 

''For the people throughout all the 
world'' was the legend which his mind's 
eye clearly read, as he rose to speak, on the 
thousands of graves that lay before his 
feet. "From the coasts beneath the eastern 
star," said the chaplain of Congress in the 
opening prayer, "from the shores of north- 
ern lakes and rivers, from the flowers of 
western prairies, and from the homes of 
the midway border, they came here to die 
for us and our nation/' 

So when, twenty months later, sur- 
rounded by a heart-broken group of his 
closest associates, he lay breathing his last 
in that humble room in Washington, 
whither he had been carried, he put his seal 
upon his Gettysburg World-Message. For 
no more appropriate legend could be written 
above that sad scene than : 



SUMMARY 133 

HE LIVED AND HE DIED 

THAT 
GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE 
BY THE PEOPLE 

FOR THE PEOPLE 
SHOULD NOT PERISH FROM THE EARTH 



O GOD, who in this land hast made the 
people the ministers of Thy just rule: So 
turn their hearts unto Thee that, holding 
their citizenship as a trust from Thee, they 
may guard, defend and use it according to 
Thy will, and that, serving Thee with will- 
ing, joyful and obedient hearts, they may 
cherish their freedom as a blessing of Thy 
Gospel, and strive to bring it to all peoples; 
through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord. 
Amen, 



i 



